Barney Begins
by cheezburgerlover
Summary: How did Barney get into City 17? How did he get to work undercover for the Combine? Why is he terrified of that cat he always talks about? What was he doing in that week where Gordon was stuck in time with Alyx? This is Barney Calhoun's story. Completed.
1. A New Guy In Town

Day 1

I opened my eyes to see a faint light. At first I thought I was dead, but then I decided that you probably don't even see a light when you die, hell no. I was conscious.

"Hey, Jack! The stranger woke up!" I heard a man yell. There were footsteps, and then two men in their mid-thirties were looking over me. I realized I was on a dusty and sagging red sofa. The faint light was a nearly dead light bulb. I was in a small apartment with two windows, a small table with a tiny television, and a boarded up doorway. A mattress lay on the ground, and there was half a beer can lying on the ground. Everything in the room, including the walls and ceiling, screamed "Wash me!"

"We thought you was dead!" One of the men exclaimed.

I decided to sit up. I tried, but I soon became aware of a pounding headache. I groaned and lied back down.

"Ha, new guys don't take their first beating too lightly. That cop beat ya pretty damn hard." stated the other man.

"Wha?" I asked. I was still drowsy. The last thing I remembered was the army nuking Black Mesa. I was taking a tram out of the facility, and suddenly the whole area blew up. I don't know how I survived it, though.

Then I remembered my colleagues. Gordon, Eli, Isaac, and Eli's little daughter, Alyx. They had probably all been blown to kingdom come. I sighed.

" Hey. We should probably get you up for the night inspection. Don't let 'em catch you lying down!" Both men took one of my arms and lifted me off the sofa. My head started thumping and the headache got worse. I somehow kept myself standing as both men released me.

"The name's Jack. Jack Emerson." said Jack. He was bald and pale, with really green eyes.

"And I'm Tom. It's short for Tomas but never, ever call me that." Tom was black, and had black hair. Both were wearing blue uniforms. When I looked down, I found I was as well.

"Where am I, and what the HELL is going on? What's a night inspection? What happened to Black Mesa? Wha-"

"Now hold on a second. Did you say Black Mesa? That place blew up 20 years ago! That's why the-" Tom's speech was cut short by a loud thump from the hallway, since the tiny apartment had no door. I heard a scream, and then more footsteps coming closer.

"Crap. Night inspection! Get against the wall!" Jack exclaimed. He pushed me against the closest wall, which stunk like something had died a long time ago.

I heard the footsteps coming into the room, and a strange mechanical voice said, "You, citizen. Turn around." I turned to see the weirdest thing standing next to me. It was probably human, at around five and a half feet tall. It wore a dark green vest with a radio, and it wore a white mask. There were eye holes, but they were covered with tinted plastic or glass. The most menacing feature was the black baton it was holding. It patted me down, probably checking for weapons or concealed items. "Turn on the television." It commanded in the strange voice it had.

I found a button on the TV, and so I switched it on. A man's face showed up on screen, and started talking. "Let me read a letter I recently rec-" The thing switched off the television.

"GET BACK AGAINST THE WALL." Before I could move, he shoved me against the wall. It then moved to Tom, who was against the wall next to me. Tom was patted down, and the thing moved to Jack.

However, as the thing was patting down Jack, its hand stopped over the side of the pants. Jack was thrown to the ground and the thing pulled a small metal disc out of the pants.

"What is this?"

"Uh, it's a, it's a-" Jack did not have time to finish. Those were the last words he ever spoke. The thing flipped a switch on its baton, making the top fizz with blue electricity. It brought the baton down on Jack's skull as hard as it could. There was a sickening crack as Jack's life was ended without warning. Without another word, the thing dragged Jack by the collar out of the apartment, leaving a blood trail.

"NOOOOO!" Tom screamed.

"What just happened? What was that thing?" I asked in surprise.

"That was a...night inspection." Tom paused and sat down on the mattress. "Before the regulation that states that every citizen in the city has to be in their apartments is enforced, CPs go into each apartment and...inspect everyone. If something is wrong, like we're concealing weapons or the television doesn't work, we get killed and disposed...of." At this point Tom started sobbing.

After Tom recovered from his fit of sadness, I asked him where the hell I was and what was going on.

"After Black Mesa exploded and all the aliens killed, a new race called the Combine took over the Earth seven frigging hours. Now all the Earth's people have been forced into cities. There are about thirty on Earth now. We're in City 17 right now. The Combine did something weird to the humans minds that stops them from having babies. I dunno how you don't know all this. You musta been in some kinda stasis. You were actually found napping on the side of a street. That's a major violation. A cop came up to you and beat the hell outta you. I'm surprised you didn't die on the spot. While you were unconscious, the Combine assigned you to this apartment and dressed you in citizen's clothing, and so here you are."

Suddenly, the lights went off. "Time for bed, I guess. I can show you the ropes of the city tomorrow. By the way, what is your name?"

"Barney. Barney Calhoun. Have you ever thought of a rebellion?"

"Rebellion? Only in my wildest dreams! The Combine will squash any rebellion in a matter of hours. Their numbers are huge. Well, g'night. Don't let the Combine fight!" Tom chuckled as my first day in City 17 ended. I drove myself to sleep by thinking how I got here and how I missed 20 years of my life without aging. That was truly creepy.

End Day 1


	2. First Day of Enslavement

Day 2

An alarm sounded. It blasted throughout the entire city and made the windows rattle. At the sound of it, I shot off of the sofa I'd been sleeping on. Tom opened his eyes slowly, groaned, and stood up.

"Mornin, Barney. How'd ya sleep?" Tom asked in a groggy voice.

"Fine. Does the alarm sound every morning?"

"Yup. That's the wake up call. If you're still in the apartment in five minutes you get killed by Civil Protection, so we might as well get outta here."

"What about breakfast?"

"We can pick some up at the dispenser across the street at the old movie theater. After that, we head straight to work."

"Work?"

"Uh huh. Humans on Earth right now are basically enslaved by the Combine, so we have to do whatever job they tell us to do. It might be something like sweeping the sidewalk or replacing the wheel of an APC."

"APC?"

"Armored Personnel Carrier. It's a big silver truck that carries Civil Protection around. We really have to get out of the apartment now, though. C'mon." We left the apartment and went down three flights of stairs to find a door with some kind of metal mechanism over the doorknob.

A Civil Protection officer stood by the door. "Where are you headed?" It asked.

"The precinct seven human ration dispenser for breakfast rations, officer."

The CP grunted and stuffed his thumb into a glowing orange hole in the mechanism. (I guess it was a lock) The light turned green, and the door unlocked.

We found ourselves in a dirty and poorly kept courtyard. Nothing here looked out of place until a hovering silver robotic-like thing came up to me. The front of it looked like a small robotic eye. The eye seemed to focus on me, and then the robot made a ticking sound, and suddenly I went blind.

"Ahhh! What the-" As soon as it left, my vision returned to normal.

"That's a scanner. When it sees fit, it hovers up to someone and snaps their picture. They're like flying security cameras. Sometimes when it sees something wrong, it takes a picture of the scene, and transmits it to the nearest CP officer. Then he comes along and beats the crap out of you."

We kept walking. As we turned the corner, I saw a colossal building. It was a blue skyscraper, and the top disappeared into the clouds. It was enormous. I had never seen anything as large in my life.

"Thats the Citadel. It's the headquarters of the Combine on Earth. There are other Citadels, but none as large. This one is the most important, since Breen is here.

"Breen?"

"He's the only human with power on Earth. In fact, he has more power than most of the Combine. He's like a little puppet for them. All the citizens hate him because he is the reason the Combine are still on Earth. He has these Breencast things that broadcast on the screens spread throughout the city." I remembered the man on the television I had seen last night. He looked familiar...

"There's the dispenser. To get the ration, just stand in front of it. It'll know who you are."

There was a machine in the window of the box office in front of the theater. There was line of citizens already standing in front of it.

"You've got to be really hungry to wait in line for this crap." One of the citizens said. She continued, saying, "I don't know about you, but I'm ready to join the Combine just to get a decent meal."

When I saw the rations, I was a bit surprised. The machine gave out bags that had the air sucked out of them. The food was probably freeze-dried. When it came to my turn, the machine ejected another bag.

On the bag there was a stamp that read, "Human food rations, date 4/12/2018, 726am: Human food rations, date 4/12/2018, 726am."

After Tom got his rations, we ate the weird substance. The citizen was right, it was crap.

Over the course of a day, I had to serve the Combine. I did a lot of sweeping, and I had to somehow get a full dumpster to a waste vaporization site about a half mile away. There were certain parts of the city where I could not talk to other citizens, or I would be killed. If I left some dirt on the sidewalk after I said I was done sweeping, I would be killed. If I touched a Civil Protection officer, I would be killed. If I came too near to a Civil Protection officer, I would be violently shoved away or momentarily stunned by the CP's stun batons. If I ran, I would be killed. If I was seen with a pet, both I and the pet would be killed. If I was heard talking bad about Breen, I would be killed. If I questioned the metropolice's methods, I would be killed. Everywhere I looked, there was a Combine regulation. Once, a CP shot down a pigeon with a pistol and forced me to put it in a trash can, and then empty that trash can. Twice, I saw a CP beating a citizen to death, and another instance where two men were taken into a building, inspected, and shot by a CP.

_I couldn't believe it_! At the end of the day, I had seen eight humans and two pigeons slaughtered by the Combine.

And the entire day, I had to listen to Breen rambling on and on about how instinct coddled us and kept us safe in those hardscrabble years when we hardened our sticks and cooked our first meals above a meager fire and stared at the shadows that leapt upon the cavern's walls. Yes. I had memorized it.

When I met back up with Tom at 7:30 in the evening in our apartment (after I ate that stuff they call dinner), he had some interesting news for me. "Barney, as I was working today, I remembered why your name sounded so familiar to me. There's this scientist in hiding in an old building in the city. He mentions you all the time, and how he wishes you were alive. He assumed that you were dead. Tomorrow, I can take you to his lab. A lot of citizens know where it is."

I was speechless. I assumed the doc had been killed by the explosion! I just wondered if Eli, Alyx, and Gordon were still alive. But all this had to wait until tomorrow. The night inspection came and went without a problem, and I spent the night planning a rebellion.

End Day 2


	3. Beginning of the Action Part 1

Day 3

In the morning, as we were leaving our apartment, Tom was mercilessly shot. It came without warning. As he stepped out of the apartment a bit ahead of me, a metrocop grabbed his pistol and fired three shots at his head. The metrocop then came up to Tom's body, kicked it to the side of the hall, and pointed at me.

"You, citizen. Come with me. You are being transferred to another apartment."

I was horrified. If he didn't have a cocked pistol in his hand, I would have screamed at him. I would've cracked his #ing neck and thrown him out the window. But he had a weapon.

The metrocop grabbed me by my collar, and said, "Come with me."

I followed him up a staircase and down the hall. At the second to last apartment on the right of the hallway, he stopped and shoved me into the room. He then left without another word.

I couldn't believe it. Everything happened so fast. Tom was lying dead downstairs in the hallway. I had been moved by an angry metrocop into a new apartment. And now there was no one willing to lead me to the doc's lab. Just great.

I decided to look around my new apartment. This one was much larger. There was a stove, a shelf with some empty cans, a blue couch that was a bit less dusty than the red one in my last apartment, windows that were somewhat clean, and two mattresses lying on the ground, as well as (dirty) bathroom. The room was empty.

I began wondering why, but then I realized it was morning. Everyone had left for work, except me. As soon as I realized that metrocops would be sweeping the apartment, I heard footsteps on the floor below me. Crap. There was no where to hide in the apartment, and jumping out of the window would be just plain stupid. However, there was no guarantee I would die that way, so I had to hurry up and get out of the window without breaking it. I saw four screws on the window that were painted over. I had to find a way to unscrew them before the CPs came into the room.

Quickly, I ran over to the shelf of empty cans and grabbed one with the lid sticking up. I tore the lid off the can and ran back to the window. I started scraping paint off of the screws with the sharp edge of the lid. Once the paint was off, I used the edge to unscrew the screw. One down, three to go. I heard the metrocops climbing the stairs to the fourth story, the one I was on. Luckily, I was in the apartment close to the end of the hall.

I continued scraping and unscrewing until finally, all the screws were out. However, the metrocops were leaving the apartment next to mine, and running into my apartment. I grabbed the window frame and hurled it as hard as I could at one of the two metrocops. It hit him square in the head. I had no time to check if I had killed him. I just jumped out of the window to the street below. For four sickening seconds, I fell through the air, until I hit ground.

The pain shot up through my body. I was pretty sure I busted something in my right leg. I heard angry shouts above me and I realized that the the metrocop(s) must have ran to the window to see what happened. I quickly got onto my feet, and hobbled away. As I was running, I heard gunshots, and bullets whizzed past my ear.

I wasn't as lucky as those guys in movies who seem to never get hit by gunfire while running. Two of eight bullets hit me, once in my good leg and once on my back. Despite the unbearable pain that shot through me like liquid fire, I managed to turn a corner into an alley, out of view of the cop. I saw a dumpster on the side of the alley, and heaved myself into it. I probably didn't have much time until a CP followed my blood trail and found me in the dumpster.

"I need to get patched up!" I said to myself. I tried to find something in the dumpster that would work as a bandage, but it was pitch black and I wasn't exactly MacGuyver. I had to get out of the dumpster, but before I did, I grabbed some kind of blunt object. As I stepped out of the dumpster, I heard footsteps approaching the alley. I looked at my weapon, which turned out to be a wooden plank.

As a cop rounded the corner with his pistol raised, I swung the plank into his face. It didn't kill him, but he dropped his gun. I grabbed it and shot him in the head.

"_Unit loss: 1, Civil Protection unit zero two five six. Fremenik Street, Alley _4." The cop's radio announced the death of the cop. A vial of green liquid dropped from his belt as he collapsed. It seemed like something health related, so I unscrewed the top and poured the liquid onto my leg wound. The wound instantly closed.

I had no time to marvel over the green stuff, so I grabbed an ammo clip off of the cop's belt and shot down the latch of a fire escape. The ladder dropped down and I began climbing with my non-busted leg. It was a very awkward climb. I did this for the other ladders as well, until I had finally reached the roof of the building. My back wound still was bleeding openly.

Regardless of the pain, I managed to keep going across the rooftop of the building. I saw a scanner heading my way. I shot it several times with my pistol, but it seemed to get angry and started diving towards me like a kamikaze fighter. I dove out of the way of the scanner, but it wasn't a very impressive dive. I kind of just flopped over to the side.

Because of that, shrapnel from the scanner's explosion hit me. More wounds in my back, now. I couldn't take much more of this

Apparently, neither could my body. Due to all the blood loss, I passed out,

"Doctor Kleiner, Barney's up!" I heard a young woman's voice yell. I stiffened at the mention of the scientist.

I heard footsteps running to the thing I was lying on. It felt like a wooden crate. It was.

"Finally! I was under the impression he left us. The familiar face looked over me. The man was practically bald, and wore square glasses.

I smiled and said to him, "Locked yourself out again, doc?"

End Part 1 (But wait! Day three hasn't ended yet. I'll post part 2 of day 3 as soon as I find the time. It'll be relatively soon.)

P.S you rock, reviewers!! :)


	4. Beginning of the Action Part 2

Day 3

(Part Two)

I managed to get off of the crate. There was a dull pain in my back and right leg. The crate was bloodstained. The first thing I noticed was all the scientific equipment.

There were some large glass tubes with filled with orange liquid. "Feel free to look around, Barney." Dr. Kleiner said.

I stared in awe at all the contents of the room. I guess it was the lab.

As I was looking around, I saw a pretty and young woman seated on the crate next to mine. Immediately, I recognized her as Alyx Vance. She wore a brown hoodie with duct tape over the right shoulder. under the hoodie, there was a t-shirt with the Black Mesa logo on it. She had a headband and blue jeans, along with a utility belt. A bulge in her sweater made me suspect she had some kind of firearm.

I gaped at her. I could never picture her at twenty-something.

She chuckled. "Good to see you again, Barney."

"Right back at ya, Alyx." I playfully punched her shoulder.

"How did you get into City 17?" She asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine. How 'bout you?"

"Likewise."

As I looked around at the lab, she talked to me about Eli, a woman named Judith, her mechanical pet DOG (Defender Of Good, Eli had come up with the idea), and the doc's goal of creating a portal between his lab and Eli's. She showed me her gun, which her dad had modified. It was a rapid-fire pistol with a padded white handle. She let me fire some rounds at a wall. The doc then yelled at her.

Now, there was only one person left on my "Is he alive?" list. I hoped he was somewhere in the city.

There were several computers and monitors, a station with a bunch of TVs, a cat carrier, (huh?) etcetera. On one of the desks, I found a shotgun.

"You cannot use that, Barney! It is my weapon!" Dr. Kleiner said. I burst into laughter at the thought of the doc using a weapon, let alone something hardcore like a shotgun. The doc ignored my laughter, and told me to put the shotgun down. As I was toying with a mini version of the teleportation device, I saw a tan blur jump in front of me. I recognized it as something I thought had seen the last of at Black Mesa. Yes, it was a headcrab! I yelled to the Doc and Alyx to get down. Then, I ran across the room to get the shotgun, spun around, cocked the gun, and fired. Because the shell spread, none of the shots hit the headcrab. Two of the pellets, however, hit the mini teleportation device.

"BARNEY! WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?" The doc ran across the lab, grabbed the shotgun out of my hands with force I never saw coming, and tossed it away.

"You almost killed Lamarr and I am sure you badly damaged the teleport!"

"It's okay, Doctor. He doesn't know about Lamarr." Alyx said in a calm voice. While Dr. Kleiner was catching his breath from yelling so loud, Alyx explained. "Barney, Dr. Kleiner found Lamarr on the street in City 17. He was studying the anatomy of a headcrab, and so he decided to de-beak her as an experiment, like you would declaw a cat. Now, she is absolutely harmless and just looks scary."

"Yes. Barney. I can forgive you for Lamarr, but you know perfectly well that shotgun shells spread into pellets! God knows what you could have hit! I have worked on that mechanism for over a year now!"

"Aw, I'm sorry, doc. But how bad could the damage be? An individual pellet doesn't do much damage at all, and two pellets shouldn't be that different."

Dr. Kleiner rolled his eyes. "Well, let's see."

The damage was basically nothing. There were two tiny dents in the metal, but that was all. So Dr. Kleiner eventually forgave me.

Dr. Kleiner then told me, "I am keeping Gordon's Hazardous Environment suit in case he should happen to come around. I am trying to find him in the city while staying by the lab, so I temporarily deactivated a scanner, reprogrammed it, and activated it a again. It now does not take pictures, but takes a constant video that is fed to that screen over there. However, when I looked at the screen this morning, I had lost the feed. I suspect it was destroyed." I realized that the scanner that had almost killed me was the doc's. Ooops.

A security station stood against the wall, and there was a large screen that probably streamed the feed from the scanner.

"It was supposed to beep when it recognized Gordon, somehow. I don't really know." Alyx said.

"Screw that, where's Gordon's suit?"

Dr. Kleiner went up to a small metal garage door, punched in some digits (38715) in a keypad, and the door slid open. In a glass case sat the Mark V Hazardous Environment suit. I think I started drooling.

"Ya know, doc. I was thinking. I think I'm gonna work undercover for Civil Protection." As soon as the word "Protection" left my mouth, Alyx burst into laughter.

"HA HA HA HA HA! Barney, are you-" (gasp, gasp) Alyx then started cracking up again, and so couldn't continue talking.

"Alyx, I do not see what is so funny about it. If Barney gets caught doing this, we'll all be in trouble. But Barney, how do you expect to pull that off without actually becoming a member of the Combine yourself?"

"I'm gonna kill a CP and take his suit."

At this point, Dr. Kleiner chuckled a bit, too. Alyx was now snickering. "Barney, metrocops have a sensor in their heart that check for a heartbeat. When it doesn't detect a heartbeat, it automatically sends an alert to any cops within a quarter of a mile. If you kill a metrocop, others will come and find you!" Alyx said.

"The doc's smart. He should have some kind of gadget that disables the sensor. How 'bout it?"

"I do not possess such an object, but I imagine it is quite simple to make. I should have it ready tomorrow morning. But for now, Barney, you might as well sleep the rest of the day away. There have been alarms the entire day. Staying here is your safest bet. You can do all the things you need to do tomorrow."

End Day 3

(Solid man, I realize now that the fall was pretty unrealistic indeed. Thanks for pointing that out.)


	5. Becoming the Combine

Day 4

Hunger. Thirst. Those were the first words that came to my brain when I woke up. It made sense, too. The last time I had any food or drink was the night before last night. My throat was just about as wet as the Sahara Desert.

Dr. Kleiner had a loft in his lab where there were some more crates and junk like that. He found a blanket in a closet, which he tossed over a crate in the loft. Not exactly Tempur-Pedic, but it would have to do. I could see slivers of light shining through a boarded up window. It was day, which meant I had slept for a good long time. The doc was already sitting at a desk, drinking from a blue soda can, typing away on a computer. The only sound was the lab equipment humming.

I climbed down the ladder that led to the loft. The doc didn't even look my way when he said, "Good morning, Barney. How was your sleep?"

I ignored his question and asked him where he got soda.

"Oh, right outside the door. Alyx often goes out and brings back cans of carbonated water to the vending machine, which is what I am drinking now."

"Why not keep the bottles in the lab?"

"Because then they would not be cold."

I walked to the doorway and typed 38715 into the keypad, and the door opened immediately. It took me a moment to comprehend, but the door to the lab turned out to be the front of a vending machine. The other vending machine had 12 beverage options, all of them being "Breen's Private Reserve" water. I pushed a button, and a blue can with B stamped on the front slid out. I grabbed the can, and drank all the water in less than a minute. I didn't care that it was carbonated. I then tossed the can away

The door to the lab (the other vending machine) had closed and I had no idea how to get back in. So, I decided that pressing the third, eighth, seventh, first and fifth beverage options one after the other would open the door. When it did, I felt smarter than all the scientists in Black Mesa put together. (and then some!)

"What're you working on, doc?"

"What else? The teleport."

"Say, where is that thing anyway. Nothing here looks like it would be the thingy.

Without another word, Dr Kleiner stood up and walked over to a picture frame that was askew. He straightened the picture, and a panel on the metal column next to him slid up. An iris scanner stuck out, and Dr. Kleiner scanned his eyes. The entire wall next to me started moving, and it slid to the side. A whole new room revealed itself.

"Here is that thingy!" Dr Kleiner announced, slightly puffing up his chest. A platform stood on one side of the room, and a huge metal ball was hanging from the ceiling. A wall was covered with more equipment, and there was a small catwalk on the other side of the room, with even more computers and blinking gadgets.

It wasn't really that exciting.

After the doc closed the wall to the room, I asked him, "Hey, doc. Where's Alyx? Is she out getting food or something? 'Cause I could use me some fish sticks."

"Precisely. Oh, and by the way, Barney? Here is that device you wanted." Out of his lab coat came a small flashlight. (or what looked like one.) "All you do is point the the front at a Civil Protection officer, and press the button. If this light turns green, the sensor turns off."

"Hey, sweet!"

At that moment, Alyx came through the door to the lab. She was carrying two cardboard boxes. "Hey, guys. I brought breakfast!" One of the boxes held ground coffee, dried chunks of meat, and other dried food objects in airtight bags.

In five minutes, I had myself scrambled eggs with chunks of ham, as well as some coffee. At this point, I really wanted to be a metrocop.

Before I left the lab with Alyx and the new gadget, Dr. Kleiner gave me my pistol from yesterday, and told me to bring back the dead cop so he could show me how to put it on and take it off. He also wanted to study the body.

Alyx showed me how to get to the roof of the building we were in, and then came with me to hunt out a cop to kill.

After an hour of hunting, we found the perfect opportunity. A citizen was told to sweep a stretch of sidewalk. Being how he was, he refused and took off. Three metrocops took off after him. The third on was not as fast a runner, and soon fell behind. We ran ahead of him, and hid behind a corner he would soon be passing.

As soon as he turned the corner, I disabled the "life sensor" and Alyx tackled him. She let me do the honors of twisting his neck. (So as not to damage the suit he wore.) I heard a satisfying crunch as I took hold of his neck and twisted like there was no tomorrow. I then took the cop and slung him over my shoulder.

"Come on, we need to get back to the lab. Follow me!" Alyx exclaimed. I followed her up some stairs, through various hallways, and we finally go to the roof. I followed her all the way to an elevator, which took us all the way down. After going through another hallway, we found ourselves at the vending machine.

We came in, finding the doc pacing around the lab, writing something on a clipboard. "Ah, there you are. I have the table ready. The doc pointed to a table he had moved to the middle of the lab. I threw the cop onto the table, and Dr. Kleiner carefully took off the suit. The body was, in a word, freaky. I don't even know how to describe it. It hardly looked human. Dr. Kleiner was not alarmed.

He went to one of the tubes filled with orange liquid with the suit, and tossed it into the liquid. He went to a panel by the tube, pushed a button, and the liquid started boiling.

Then, he grabbed a white spray can with "FORMALDEHYDE" printed on it. He sprayed the cop's body on the table, and carried out some tests on the body. He was in the middle of slicing off a piece of skin to put under a microscope, when the panel by the tubes of orange liquid started beeping. He ran to the panel, pushed a button, took the suit out of the liquid and put it on a table. The liquid on the suit began evaporating, and in minutes I was wearing the suit.

"Now, Barney. Remember to report to the nearest CP station to learn what to do. You might have to injure or perhaps even kill a citizen or two per week to keep your suspicion level down. I will not think any less of you."

"Okay, doc, but I'm not gonna be too happy about it."

With that, I left the lab and into Station 20 of the Trans-Human Arm of the Combine Overwatch. (So the sign above the door said) When I came to the door, I recognized the lock with an orange hole in the middle. I stuck my thumb in the hole, and the door opened. I stepped into an air-conditioned room, with two metrocops guarding a hallway with SMGs, and another metrocop seated at a monitor with a control panel at the bottom.

"Greetings. I am a new recruit, and was sent here for training." My own voice startled me as a I talked to the seated cop.

"Good. I was waiting your arrival. Come with me." The cop stood up and led me into the hallway, past the guards. He stopped in front of a door with the same lock. He opened the door for me, and I came into a dull, beige room. There was a comfy looking bed on the side, and a shelf with a shining, new pistol and a black stunstick. Report to the training room once you are settled.

There was nothing to settle into. "I think I'm ready now." I still was not used to my voice.

The cop then led me up a flight of stairs, and into another locked door. Another CP was already sitting in a chair. "Now. Let's begin."

I couldn't believe how much I learned in that hour. I learned of all of the Combine regulations, which took a good part of an hour, and then I was told that I was going to be monitoring all the security cameras in the train station, which received trains from cities 7-16. I would interrogate anyone who looked suspicious, and was to torture and kill them if anything ever did not go how I liked. I couldn't believe how quickly I was put to work. The CP that trained me turned me back over to the CP that took me here. I was loaded into an APC and driven to the train station.

The cop then showed me to my workspace in a small room with several security panels, two cameras, a desk, and a red chair for interrogations. What bothered me the most about the room was that there was a small puddle of blood at the base of the chair.

I was instructed in the use of the security panels, how to open and close doors throughout the station by pushing certain buttons on the panel, how to activate and deactivate security cameras.

There was a train leading to a place called Nova Prospekt, which turned out to be a high security Combine prison where citizens were changed into Combine through a harsh operation.

I had to have clearance from both the precinct and Station 20 commandant if anyone claimed to be going to Nova Prospekt. Then they would be inspected, their history checked, and then loaded on the train. It left for Nova Prospekt every third day. My current beating quota was one citizen per month because I was a recruit. If I was five citizens past my beating quota, I would be inspected and, most likely executed. I was also told my clearance number, 07675001783.

Finally, my training was completed. I started work.

It was boring as hell. Nothing remotely interesting happened, and my shift was from 10 in the morning to one in the afternoon.

At least lunch was fish fillet.

Finally, there was a knock on the door to the office. It was one in the afternoon. Another metrocop came and relieved me of my work. I took an APC to Station 20 of the Trans-Human Arm of the Combine Overwatch, or S20 THACO. When I arrived, I was informed I was assigned to be an APC driver/gunner. My route was from S38 THACO to the Sector 2, precinct 14 gate. The work stretched until 6 P.M, at which time I returned back to S20 THACO.

I left the station right away, taking my gun and stunstick with me.

When no one was looking, I cut through an apartment building, whacking anyone in my way. (Not killing them, of course.) I made my way to the roof, across the rooftops and eventually down to the doc's lab. Before I entered, I took off my mask so they would not confuse me with a real metrocop. When I entered the lab, Dr. Kleiner was chopping up chunks of watermelon for Lamarr, who was constantly trying to steal bites of the berry before it was fully chopped.

"Hi, doc." He looked up at me and jumped.

"Barney! You startled me."

"Well, first day was done without any problems. It was easier than I thought."

"Well, that's just great. I was running tests on the body, and I found that there is no body fat on it. Just muscle, which would explain why it was so thin. And I found that salt makes the skin burn, quite like a snail. And there are no reproductive organs, lungs, or kidneys or liver. It is very strange."

I felt slightly nauseated. "That's great, doc. Where's Alyx?"

"Right here." Alyx had just come through the door with a box of food.

"Hey, Alyx. I was wondering, where do you get all that food?"

"S20 THACO. All the stations have decent food, but it's the closest one to the lab. I just sneak in and steal it all."

"I work at S20. Maybe I can bring the food from now on?"

"If there was anything better to do in the city, I would let you. But it's my only form of amusement here."

Dinner was some strange form of pasta, with bits of leftover watermelon. Lamarr had stuffed her, uh, face with more watermelon than she could handle, and so threw up.

After dinner, I had to report straight back to the station, because CPs were expected to sleep in the stations.

I put on my mask, said goodbye to Alyx and the doc, and set off to the station. At least there I slept in a bed.

End Day 4


	6. Mass Murder

Day 5

I heard a rapping on my door. Then, a metrocop came in. "You're needed at the train station plaza. There's a riot there, four units were shot, and for every one killed, that's one more gun for them. Come on!"

I wanted to go there and cheer them on, but that would get me killed. So I ran to an APC that was waiting outside the station. I had my pistol and stunstick on my belt. The APC drove to a gate, at which we passed through and ran to the plaza. It was an odd sight.

There was something that looked like an obelisk in the center of the plaza. There was a Breencast screen on the "obelisk", and there were about five citizens on the screen. (I don't know how the hell they got up there). Two were hitting it with hammers, and the other three had pistols and were firing at Civil Protection officers. They also had homemade grenades. They had sheets of scrap metal, which were their shields against gunfire. They were pretty good shots, those citizens.

One of them saw me, and fired several shots at me. One hit me in the chest. It hurt, but not as badly as it would have without the CP suit. I had no other choice but to shoot them. So I pulled out my pistol, cocked it, and took cover behind the corner of a building. I tried shooting one of the citizens with hammers, but it was no use.

(A/N: That part made me laugh when I wrote it, because it was unclear. Barney did not shoot citizens using hammers as bullets, as I first thought when I wrote it. No, he shot the citizens that had hammers.)

All five of the citizens were efficiently using their hunks of metal. Another shot hit the corner of the building, sending pieces of plaster everywhere.

Several cops had manhacks attached to their belts, which were little flying circular saws. They were being deployed, but they were shot down quickly.

Suddenly, a citizen yanked a pin out of a grenade and tossed it at me. I jumped out of cover, caught the grenade, (damn, it was heavy!) and hurled it back up to the citizens. The one who threw it at me was about to use his piece of sheet metal to hit it back, but the grenade exploded before he could do so. I had seen gorier things in my life, but that didn't mean this explosion didn't make my stomach churn. Pieces of citizens were hurled everywhere. I felt terrible. I had just brutally murdered five citizens with a fragmentation grenade.

Other CPs ran up to me and congratulated me, and escorted me back to the APC. When I returned to S20 THACO, word of my brilliant end to the mini riot came to the station commandant. On the positive side, my beating quota was covered for this month. (It was almost over.)

He did not promote me to street patrol, (which was "an honor",) but he did issue me an SMG. I felt even worse. The commandant expected that I would cause more bloody endings to citizens, so he gave me the gun to help. When I read the words "Heckler & Koch" on the gun, I felt a sense of deja vu. Heckler and Koch was the company that made the MP5 machine guns that the HECU used in Black Mesa.

I finished my work at the train station, (boring as hell), and then returned to S20, where I was told to do a random inspection in a certain building. I took the SMG with with me.

When I stepped out of the APC, I realized that the building I was inspecting was the one I used to live in. I inspected the entire building in an hour. My first apartment still had a blood trail from Jack's beating. At one of the apartments, however, there were three men who were no against the walls. No, they had guns. SMGs. As soon as I stepped into the apartment, I was met by a shower of bullets. I was shot six times. I fell to the ground in pain. I then radioed to other cops for backup. I no longer did not want to kill them, after all they almost killed me. I heard footsteps behind me, and cops came up the hall. Four of them in all. One dropped me a health vial, which I poured over myself. The wounds got a bit better.

By now, all four cops were dead, and I was on the ground in a pool of blood. I heard their alarms go off, and more footsteps coming up the the stairs. This time, they were not metrocops. They were a different kind of Combine. There were two, and they had blue goggles. They both had shotguns. Both unpinned frag grenades and threw them in the apartment. They cocked their shotguns and waited on both sides of the doorway into the apartment. One citizen ran out and fired two shots at one of the soldiers before he was blasted against the wall.

BOOM! Another citizen flew out of the apartment, badly mutilated. I heard glass shattering, and then silence.

"Threat neutralized. Remaining unit is receiving medical treatment." One of the soldiers said. (I think they were soldiers.) I heard even more footsteps coming up the stairs, as I began to lose consciousness. (Again!)

I woke up in my room at S20. There was no evidence I had ever been shot. My suit was free of bullet holes. They had probably used some health vials on me. I looked at the clock on my suit, which read 23:15. Crap! I had missed dinner and I was supposed to come to the doc's lab. But there was no time for that now. 11:15 at night was not on my working shift. (10:00 in the morning to 6:00 in the evening. It would be too suspicious if I went anywhere now. So, what choice did I have? I would be able to go to the lab tomorrow night.

I had a nightmare about grenades that exploded into citizen's heads.


	7. Ailurophobia

Day 10

I had been in City 17 for a little over a week, and I had found almost all of the Black Mesa survivors. (That I knew about.) I had talked with Eli Vance and the new woman (Judith Mossman), had an undercover job with Civil Protection and killed, nay, _slaughtered_ five people. Wow.

The last four days had been so routine, a robot could have done the work. Nothing noteworthy happened. I was at the train station for my entire work shift these days. (ten to six). I had let fifteen people onto the Nova Prospekt train, only after inspecting them, pulling up their history on the security panel screen via their citizen I.D, radioing the S20 THACO and train station commandants for clearance, and finally sending the citizen down the hall, out the door leading to the security rooms, and turning them over to a metrocop who would load them on the train. That was when I actually had something to do.

At least I could talk with the doc when I was extremely bored. I would shut off the cameras in the room, radio the lab, and talk. Today, the doc said he was going to test the portal. He had found a cat (somehow) and was going to teleport it to Eli's lab, and Eli would send it back.

"When you are done with your shift, Barney, come back to the lab and you will experience this breakthrough first hand!"

"All right, doc, but I have a baaaaad feeling about this. I'm not that comfortable around portals anymore. Don't kill the cat!"

"Oh, Barney. You are so cynical when it comes to science."

"Not true! I like beer! You need some kinda science to make beer, right? You know, fermenting it and stuff like that?"

The doc sighed, seeing as the conversation was going absolutely no where. "Well, Barney, make sure you are at my lab once your shift is done."

"Will do."

I ended the transmission, turned the cameras in the room back on, and returned back to my duties. At six, I took an APC to S20, signed out, and left for the lab, leaving my weapons in the station.

As I stepped into the lab, I saw Dr. Kleiner crawling around on all fours.

"What the_hell _are you doing?"

"That cat has hidden somewhere in the lab. I have Eli on the radio. His side of the teleport is ready. Oh, I just fear the worst for Lamarr. I think it makes sense that a cat is higher on the food chain than a headcrab. Cats seem more agile as well."

"So who are you looking for? The cat or the headhumper?"

"It really does not matter. One should be chasing the other."

Suddenly, I heard a crash as Lamarr jumped out of the air duct, knocking down the grate protecting the duct. There was also a screeching meow, a hiss, and I felt something hop on my head. The cat's claws dug into my head. Too bad I wasn't wearing the mask.

"OW!" I grabbed the cat and held it as far away from me as I could. It was an ugly cat, with patches of greasy grey fur missing, and a scar across his/her eye. It was trying to slash me into ribbons, but my suit protected against cat claws. I didn't feel a thing.

The doc then came to the rescue with a big fat needle of clear liquid. He gave the cat a shot, and it fell limp in my hands.

"Yeeuch. I hate cats." And I did. I had always been a dog person.

(A/N I love cats! And not dogs but they're okay)

The doc held the tranquilized cat in one arm, and he scanned his eyes to gain access into teleport room. I saw a screen on one wall in the teleport room, displaying Eli and Judith's faces. The hidden door to the teleport room slid shut behind me.

"There you are, Izzy. Found the cat?"

"Indeed, yes. I will send it to you in a matter of moments." He gave the unconscious cat to me. Then, he stepped on a lift, which took him up to a platform with some computer equipment. The metal bars over portal's platform cleared, and I put the cat on the platform.

The cat started to regain consciousness, but it was still drowsy.

Once the portal had been warmed up, I had to pull a switch to send the cat on the way. There was a brilliant flash of light, and then the cat was gone. I held my breath as Eli spoke.

"It came through all right." Eli smiled, and Mossman held the cat. It hadn't changed in any way.

"Okay, Doctor. We're sending it back." Mossman said. She left the view of the screen.

"You ready, Izzy?"

"Ready, willing, and fully enabled!" The doc was obviously proud of what he had done.

There was another flash of light, and "HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE HELL?!" The poor thing was inside out. Literally.

Blood and guts splashed onto the floor around the portal. The cat's inside of the skin was now out! The thing flopped over as if it was a pancake.

"AAAUUUUGHH!! LEMME OUT OF HERE!" I banged on the door of the teleport room frantically.

Dr, Kleiner was also screaming. He pushed a button on a panel, vaulted over the edge of the platform, and ran out the door that had just opened. I was right behind him.

He grabbed his shotgun and cocked it, carefully edging back towards the door that had slid closed behind us. I wish I had taken my SMG. I knew the thing was dead, but damn! I felt more protected with a gun.

He scanned his eyes again, lifted his shotgun, and walked into the room.

The remnants of the cat were still there, of course. Nothing had changed except the size of the pool of blood.

"IZZY! IZZY! What the hell went on in there?"

Before the doc could speak, I cut in. "I'll tell you what the hell went on in there. That cat was frigging MESSED UP is what! Screw barnacles, that thing might as well have come from Zen!"

"Y-yes, Eli. The cat seemed to have... inverted. Here, take a look for yourself. The doc rotated the camera to the thing that used to be a cat.

"Oh, god Izzy, turn the camera away!"

"Dear god!" Judith gasped.

"Barney, you can report back to the station. I will clean the mess myself, and talk the problem over with Judith and Eli." Eli had lost his leg at Black Mesa, because he was walking too close to a tank of water, and an icthyosaur chomped off his leg from the knee down. He had a prosthetic to help him walk.

I ran back to the station and put my SMG, pistol, and stunstick under my bed. I then went to get some dinner, but the soup may as well have been made of cat blood. I took one sip of soup and threw the rest away.

That night, I had a nightmare that I was drowning in, you guessed it, cat blood.

End day 10

**Yeesh. That was quite a gory chapter. As a cat lover, I did not especially enjoy writing this last part. But, I had to provide an answer to Barney's ailurophobia. Oooh, fancy word! I like. And ailurophobia is apparently misspelled, according to the spell checker. Shut up, spell checker! You don't know st! **


	8. Turbulence

Day 11

All the resistance that existed in City 17 probably came forward today. They were trying to disable a generator that powered almost everything Combine-related in the area. There was a metrocop held at gunpoint by three strong looking citizens. They held shotguns. The cop was disabling the generator. I wished I was human so I could fight alongside them.

The citizens had created a human shield around the metrocop, so he would not be killed. The shield members had grenades and SMGs, and were also protecting themselves with sheet metal. They wore the armor of fallen cops.

I was fighting alongside Combine soldier, behind an overturned APC, probably carjacked by citizens on the way to the scene. The soldier had a really cool machine gun, that fired some kind of plasma. I had my SMG as well, and a manhack on my belt. I wasn't going to let it off quite yet.

"This is unit 100672 to 100889. Do you have any ideas on getting rid of these guys?" A beep ended the call. 100889 was my number, and 100672 was the S25 THACO commandant, who was leading the fight.

As a matter of fact, I did have an idea. "Sir, tell all units with manhacks to let them off on my word! Maybe it'll be too overwhelming!" Beep.

"It'll have to work!" Beep.

"_Unit loss: 1. Civil Protection Unit 100672. Remaining units contain. Plaza of Stalin_."

Crap. I heard the commandant's radio announce his death.

"Unit 100889 to all units! Release your manhacks NOW!" Beep.

I grabbed the manhack off my belt, pushed a button on it, and tossed it into the air. It was shot down immediately, as were all the others.

"_Unit loss: 1. Civil Protection Unit 100017. Remaining units contain. Plaza of Stalin_."

This was not working out well.

"_Unit loss: 1. Civil Protection Unit 100274. Remaining units contain. Plaza of Stalin_."

Damn!

I had an idea, but I kept fighting until the opportunity came around. I tried shooting the citizens with my gun, but it was no use. They were deflecting almost all the shots, and the generator was almost exposed. Finally, a grenade flew my way. I grabbed it and rolled it like a bowling ball back towards the citizens. It was so discreet, no one noticed it, until I came out of cover and shot the grenade with my pistol, ending the fight. Damn! So much blood!

"_Unit loss: 1. Civil Protection Unit 100330. Remaining units contain. Plaza of Stalin_."

Unit 100330 was the cop that was disabling the generator. The soldier next to me high fived me and left. There was a loud cheer as many units of Civil Protection ran up to me, and congratulated me.

The S20 commandant offered me a street patrol job, but I decided to stick with train station security. I wasn't as likely to kill people.

And as it turned out, my beating quota was not connected to the people I killed, rather the people I actually took aside, interrogated, and beat to death. I couldn't do that. I had killed twenty people as of now, and I hoped to never kill another human. I could kill Combine all my life and never feel guilty. So, I was behind on my beating quota and my shift was over. So, I headed back to Dr. Kleiner's lab. This time, I took my weapons with me.

The doc was chopping watermelon, again. Lamarr hopped onto my face. "Auuughhh! Get it off of me!"

"Here, Hedy. I have watermelon for you!" The damn thing hopped off me and devoured the melon. Alyx then came through the door.

"Hey, Barney. Hi, Doctor." She was carrying a box of food. "Did you guys hear about that fight today?"

"Yeah. I was the person who blew everyone up." I muttered.

There was an awkward pause, and then the doc spoke up. "Well, I think I am finally going to finish fixing the teleport today. It should be ready in the morrow."

"Wow, doc you are old fashioned. Morrow? Who the hell says that anymore?" Alyx asked.

"It better be fixed, doc. I don't want anyone to get "inverted"."

Alyx looked at me funny, and then said, "Well, I was caught at S20 today, stealing food. I shot my way out, but I have a feeling that Civil Protection is going to guard their food closet much closer from now on. I'm gonna steal from S21 now."

"Whatever, Alyx." She left to get dinner cooking on a small stove in the corner of the lab.

"Did you get the inverted cat mess cleaned up?" I whispered to the doc.

"Indeed."

I helped the doc move a crate to the center of the room to use as a table. I then left for S20. On the way to the door, Lamarr jumped in my way. She was about to jump on my head, but I grabbed my stunstick and swatted her away. She didn't die, because I didn't turn my stunstick on.

"Take that, you stupid headhumper." I shot at the floor right next Lamarr, and scared her away.

"Barney!"

"Sorry, doc. I hate headhumpers." I left for the station once again. When I came out of the building that housed the doc's lab, A CP saw me.

"Why the hell were you in there? That place is deserted!" I had no other choice but to yank out the death sensor disabler, disable the sensor, and whack him across the head with the stunstick. I covered his wound with a rag so he would not leave a blood trail, and then dragged his body into a dumpster. I came back to S20 to find a metrocop dead, on the floor.

"What the hell?" I asked myself, before I remembered Alyx had "shot her way out" of the station. Oh well, at least tomorrow the teleport wouldn't be a murder machine. (Hopefully!)

End Day 11

**Oh, yes. Barney killed more citizens. I just had to include that. Mua ha ha.**

**This was kind of a dull chapter, but it's like the calm before the storm! Hint hint. Hee hee.**


	9. A Crapload of Combine

Day 12

I awoke in the same manner as usual. I drove to the train station, and began the mind-numbing work of a train station security screener. The day wore on as usual, until things took a turn for the better. (Or worse, if you were the Combine.)

I was staring at the feed from security cameras throughout the station, when I was alerted by an automated voice that a train had just arrived form City 12. I looked at the feed from the platform camera, and put it on full screen. Now, I could see the detail of citizen's faces, and so on. The other camera feeds were still displayed in a side monitor.

"Now wait one second." I said to myself. There were only three people leaving the train, and two of them walked slowly and hunched down, as if the world had decided to sit on their shoulders. But one of the men had his head held high, wore glasses, and had a goatee. Shit. It was Gordon.

"Oh, man!" I said to myself. I knew that wherever Gordon went, trouble tended to follow. Gordon didn't know any of the regulations, so he had a 99 chance of getting beaten. He didn't have his HEV suit on, he wore citizen's clothes. If he knew what was best for him, he would head to the Nova Prospekt platform, where I could tell him what was going on. I left the security room, and told another CP to cover for me for a second. (The security screens were to be watched 24/7, and every minute of every hour. The cop went into the room and shut the door.

"Okay, the guy is ready for interrogation." The cop radioed me. The cop had probably shut the door to the platform, and Gordon was right outside the door. There was another citizen being interrogated in the next room.

I opened the door, and there stood Gordon Freeman. He didn't recognize me yet, because I looked like any other CP.

I had to pretend I was a CP. "You, citizen. Come with me!" Gordon looked bit frightened, but he followed.

At the door to the security room, I knocked four times. The cop slid open a slot on the door, checked to make sure it was me, and then opened the door.

"Get in!" I yelled at Gordon.

"Need help with this one?" The cop asked.

"Nah, I'm good." The cop left the room.

"Back up!" I commanded. "Yeah, I'm gonna need me some privacy for this." I shut off the cameras in the room.

"Now," I took off my mask, changing my voice back to normal. "About that beer I owed ya. It's me, Gordon! Barney from Black Mesa! Hey, sorry for the scare, I needed to put on a show for the cameras. I've been working undercover with Civil Protection, I'm way behind on my beating quota."

I got Dr. Kleiner on the security screen. "Yes, Barney, what is it? I am in the middle of a critical test!"

"Sorry, doc, but look who's here!"

"Great Scott! Gordon Freeman! I expected more warning!"

"Yeah, you and me both, doc. He was about to board the express to Nova Prospekt!"

"Well, Barney. What do you intend?"

"I'm thinkin, I'm thinkin!"

"Alyx is around here, somewhere. She would have a better idea of how to get him here."

"Well, as long as he stays away from checkpoints, we should be okay. Listen, I've gotta go duck. We're taking enough chances as it is."

"Very well. And, uh, Gordon? Good to see you!" Dr. Kleiner ended the transmission.

"Okay, Gordon. You're going to have to make your own way to Doctor Kleiner's lab."

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. "Oh, man! That's what I was afraid of!" I ran to a door on the wall of the room, an opened it for Gordon. I new it lead to the train station plaza due to some exploring I had done. "Get in here, Gordon, before you blow my cover! Pile up some stuff to get to that window, and keep going till you're in the plaza! I'll meet up with ya later."

With that, I opened the door for whoever was knocking. It was the train station commandant.

"Unit 100889, you shut off the cameras. Why?"

"Uh, I beat the guy to death and threw him in the courtyard outside of the storage room. I stripped him down and tortured him."

"Ha, good job!" The commandant high fived me.

Wow. That was easier than I thought! It was almost lunch, so I could get to the doc's lab then.

Several minutes later, I received an alert from the sector commandant. "All security screening units, check your camera films. Be on the lookout for a male Caucasian, thirty something, wearing glasses and and has a goatee! A miscount in the sector has been detected! Repeat, a miscount in the sector has been detected!" Beep.

Aw, crap. Gordon had gotten himself into trouble already. I wasn't about to report him to the commandant.

Finally, my lunch break came. As I stepped out of the office, I saw the train station commandant talking urgently to two other cops.

As I stepped outside the train station, I heard alarms go off throughout the city. Damn, the Combine were pissed. There were APCs cruising the streets, ready to blow up some poor bastard.

Tons of CPs were sent into buildings to find Gordon. The Combine were combing every inch of the city.

"This is S2C!" (sector two commandant) The subject has been detected running across a rooftop of buildings on the east side of Fremenik Street! Units are firing at the subject now!" Beep.

A few minutes later, the commandant radioed again. "Subject has been subdued. Repeat, subject has been subdued. Wait, what the hell?" The radio went to static, and suddenly I heard the radio announcing death.

"_Unit loss, 4. Civil Protection units 100290, 101007, 100647, 99210. Remaining units contain_. 29731 Fremenik Street, Fourth floor."

All right! Alyx had probably come to Gordon's rescue. Unit 99210 was the sector commandant. Sweet. I kept running to the building with the doc's lab, and ran into the lab. I had followed Gordon's footsteps almost exactly. The building I came through had dead citizens lying around, probably from the search for Gordon

When I entered the lab, the doc was typing at a computer, and Alyx was talking to him.

"Well, is he here?" I saw Gordon standing around. "There you are. Man, Gordon. You stirred up the hive." I went to the security TVs on the wall, to check if I was followed. Nope. "We can't keep him here long, Doc. It'll jeopardize everything we worked for."

"Don't worry! He's coming with me." Alyx reassured me. Man, Gordon was lucky, working alongside Alyx!

"That's right, Barney. The doc looked up from his computer. "This is a red-letter day. We'll inaugurate the new teleport with a double transmission."

"You mean it's working? For real this time? 'Cause I still have nightmares about that cat."

"No, no. There's nothing to worry about." The doc reassured me.

"What cat?" Alyx asked nervously. Both I and the doc ignored her.

"We've made major strides since then. Major strides."

"What cat?" Alyx asked again. Again, we ignored her.

The doc told me to give Gordon his suit.

"I've gotta get back on my shift, but, uh, okay."

I opened the garage door to reveal the HEV suit.

As I stepped into the garage, the stupid headhumper jumped on top of me.

"AAAHH! Damn it, get it off me!" I threw Lamarr to the ground.

"Lamarr! There you a-"

"I thought you got rid of that pest!"

"Certainly not!"

The doc explained to Gordon that Lamarr was harmless.

"Get that thing away from me!" Lamarr listened, so she hopped onto the loft where I used to sleep, and disappeared into an air duct.

"Oh, fine! It'll be another week before I can coax her out of there!"

"Yeah, longer if we're lucky."

Alyx chuckled. "Barney? You're not an animal person!"

"Ylaah!" I replied, disgusted.

During this time, Gordon had gone over to the HEV suit case an put his suit on, and the doc talked to him about the suit.

Then, out of nowhere, there was an alarm. "Oh, dear!"

"Doc, we don't have time for this!"

Gordon juiced up his suit and followed us into the teleportation room.

The doc got onto his little platform, Alyx got onto the portal platform, and the doc started mumbling some scientific lingo.

An outlet on the wall got zapped out of the socket, which Gordon put back in.

"You gonna let Gordon throw the switch?" Alyx asked, already on the elevated platform.

Gordon flipped the switch, and the portal started humming louder. Eli was on the monitor on the wall, waiting for Alyx.

"Hey, uh, yeah. About that cat,"

"I can't watch." I said to the doc.

I held my breath as Alyx started to get teleported.

"Ah, ha ha, Okaayyy, Oh, Oh ooooOOOOOH" BOOM!

There was an enormous burst of light, and Alyx was gone.

"Well, did it work?" Doctor Kleiner asked Eli.

"See for yourself!" Alyx appeared on the screen, right side out. Phew!

"Let's go ahead and bring Gordon through now." Eli said.

"Right you are!"

"Great job, Gordon! Throwing that switch and all? Your MIT education really paid for itself." I joked.

"All right, Barney! Your turn!"

"Gee, thanks."

In a matter of moments, the teleport was humming again. "Good luck out there, Gordon!" I said. I threw the switch, and the machine was just about to send him off when everything went wrong. Lamarr jumped out of an air vent directly above a wire. She broke the wire as she landed on it.

"What the hell? It's your freakin headhumper!"

"Lamarr! Hedy! No!"

There was a flash of light, and Gordon was gone, but to the wrong place, probably. A second later, Gordon appeared, with some weird bubble around him.

"There he is!"

"Is Lamarr with him?"

"Forget about that thing!"

Eli was still on the monitor, as Gordon flashed away again.

"He's coming through, dad!"

"What's going on?" Eli asked, anxiously.

"There's some kind of interference. Something is drawing him away!" Judith yelled.

Sparks flew form the teleport, and few seconds later, Gordon was back.

"There he is!" I exclaimed. "I'm getting him out of there!" I ran towards the teleport.

"You cannot just wade into the field! It will peel you apart!" The doc shouted.

"We just lost Gordon! What's going on?" Alyx yelled.

"I wish I knew! I'm encountering interference!" The doc was hysteric.

"Don't worry, Gordon! We-"

He was gone again!

"There he is!" Alyx yelled.

"We're losing him _again_! Judith cried.

Nothing happened for a few seconds. The doc was all over his computer.

"He didn't come through!" Eli yelled.

"Then where is he?!" The doc was going insane.

"Behind you." Eli said.

"AAAH!" The doc screamed. Gordon was sopping wet.

"Get down outta sight! I'll come find you!" I yelled to Gordon through the window. Gordon was standing right outside the lab. I saw Gordon nod, then disappear from view.

"Crap, doc! Nothing ever goes right! I ran out of the lab, grabbing Gordon's old crowbar, which the doc had found in the room before it became his lab. I ran out a door, onto a deck. Gordon was standing right below me.

"Hey, Gordon! The Citadel's on full alert! I never seen it lit up like that!" The Citadel was pumping out hundreds of scanners, and apparently, Gordon had been found by a scanner earlier. "Get out of City 17 as fast as you can, Gordon! Go through the old canals, right? It's a dangerous route, but there's a whole network of refugees, and... they'll help you if they can. I'd come with you, but I gotta look after Dr. Kleiner. Oh, and before I forget," I picked up the crowbar that I had put down when I started talking. "I think you dropped this back in Black Mesa." I threw the crowbar to Gordon. "Good luck out there, buddy. You're gonna need it."

With that, I left Gordon, praying he wouldn't get killed. I realized I had to get back on my shift, ASAP. I ran back to the lab, to see Dr. Kleiner even more alarmed, sitting by the door with his shotgun.

"What the hell, doc?"

I looked at the security monitors. "Oh, crap." I was pretty sure I would have to end my Civil Protection career here and now. There was a search party of Combine, sweeping the building. The doc would get shot and killed if he went out there himself.

"Doc. I need your shotgun."

"Absolutely not."

"Doc, don't you see that there is a crapload of Combine heading our way? If you don't give me that shotgun, we'll both be killed. And, if they search the lab, they'll kill Lamarr and des-"

"Okay, Barney! Take the gun! Just don't let them kill Hedy!" I grabbed his gun, stuffed some ammo in my pocket, and charged out of the lab, as the vending machine door closed behind me. I heard footsteps approaching the lab. There was a great big explosion sound, and the Combine came through the hallway. They started firing at me.

Holy crap, there were about ten soldiers with cool plasma guns. When this was over, I would get me one. A soldier tossed a grenade at me, which I caught and hurled back. The explosion took out a little more than half of the group. Gunfire repeatedly hit me. I fired two shots from the shotgun, and then took cover from behind a barrel. The soldiers ran to the opposite end of the room, making my shotgun useless.

But if I was behind this barrel and they were way over there, none of us could kill anyone else. So, I held my breath and ran at the three remaining Combine, screaming bloody murder. I slammed the butt of the shotgun against a soldier, killing him. I shot a shell at one of the other soldiers, but then, I felt A sharp pain in my back. The last soldier had hit my back with his plasma rifle, knocking me to the floor. He kicked me, cracking a rib. Then, he picked up his shotgun, and fired at me.

The pain was unbearable.

Then, I heard Dr. Kleiner yelling at the Soldier, calling him a "good for nothing fool." I heard more gunfire, and the soldier landed dead, on top of me.

The doc lifted the limp soldier off of me, and dragged me back into the lab. I was covered in blood, most of it being my own.

The doc started pouring health vials over me, closing my gunshot wounds. But my rib remained broken. I coughed up enough blood to satisfy any hospital's needs for donated blood.

The doc poured some kind of liquid down my throat. I wondered if it had the same taste as chewing a pill not meant to be chewed. It tasted horrible, but I felt a weird sensation in my body, as if I had eaten chicken noodle soup on a cold day.

I had not heard any radio chatter, which meant the soldiers had not communicated with anyone else. The lab was still a secret, but I don't think that I would be working for the Combine again. I had sent a lot of the Combine's info to Drs. Kleiner and Vance. They had based a lot of their technology in a way that it was immune to the Combine, in a way that they could not detect it using their ultra secret spy satellites. My work was done. I went back into the hall, grabbed a plasma rifle, and tried it out. It's bullets spread less than the SMG, and were much stronger. I think this one was a keeper.

End part 1, Day 12

(But not the end yet!)


	10. Bye Bye, S20!

Part 2, Day 12

"Well, doc, what now?" I was sitting in the lab, bored out of my mind. I was absentmindedly wiping the new gun, which was called an AR2, or Standard Issue Overwatch Pulse Rifle.

"I have plenty of things to occupy myself with now, Barney. I must talk with Eli and find out what went wrong. Oh, and Barney? Judith was a seamstress in her early twenties, and she worked at a factory. She recently has made a special suit to be worn under normal clothes. It has a special material sewn between the fibers of the cloth that probably would rank 11 on the Mohs Hardness scale, if there was such a rating. It makes you virtually bulletproof. I find that you will probably be fighting a lot, so the suit might prove to be useful. Alyx already has one of these suits. Even her bra is made of that material."

"Uh, that's just great, doc. So, where's the suit?"

Dr. Kleiner went to a crate, lifted the top, and pulled out an olive green thing that resembled a wetsuit. On the front was a big yellow Lambda symbol. I got out of my clothes, put on the suit, and put the CP uniform back on. I felt protected, but I had yet to see how the thing would hold out in combat. (A/N I always thought how unfair it was that Alyx and Barney are virtually invincible. So, I decided to create a reason.)

I had to kill some Combine. I had a little voice telling me to blow up S20 THACO. I grabbed the AR2 and left the lab. I came to S20, scanned my finger and came in. I disabled the sensors of the guards at the hallway, and shot them. No one else saw anything, except the security camera! Damn it! I forgot it was there!

An alarm sounded in the station, and I heard footsteps coming down the hallway. I knew they were shooting at me, but the pain was dramatically reduced, due to the suit. I disabled their sensors, and killed them all. The AR2 was very effective! I ran into each room, killing every CP I saw, after disabling their death sensors. I felt a sharp pain in my back. The S20 commandant was trying to stab me in the back with a knife. I grabbed the knife out of his hands, and kicked him against the wall. I yanked his boot off and plunged the knife into his foot. He screamed like a little girl. (At least he would have if his voice changer didn't change his voice.) I yanked the knife out of his foot, took his SMG, and threw it away.

"This is for killing so many people!" I yelled at the commandant. I kicked his side.

"This is for torturing so many others!" I shot him once with the AR2 in the stomach.

"And THIS IS FOR BOTH!" I disabled his sensor and shot him to death. I let out a big breath. Wow. I had just killed off an entire station's worth of metrocops. I heard an alarm sound throughout the city. They were on to me.

I guess blowing up the station would have to wait, if not be canceled at all. I didn't want to start a full-scale rebellion. It would probably end up in a Combine victory. I decided to get the hell out of the station. As I passed one of the CP's bedrooms, I saw the door was slightly open. I had shot the CP in here already, but I noticed something on the nightstand.

Beer. Yes. Beer. I hadn't had a beer in over 20 years, since my security guard job at Black Mesa forbade the drinking of alcohol. But there it was, an unopened beer can. I couldn't help myself. I twisted of the top and downed the entire thing in a minute. I felt a bit tipsy, but my aim was still okay.

This reminded me of my 21st birthday, where I had gone to a bar with my family to celebrate. I had six beers. I had then tried to play darts, and none of my darts had hit the target. The last dart hit someone who was watching in the eye. The second that had happened, I was so drunk that I yelled "Human's eye! GOD YES!" I was then taken to jail for two days, only because I had been good and steaming _**drunk**_.

I heard a boom. Combine had knocked down the door to the station. They were soldiers, which did not have death sensors. There were three this time, only with SMGs. I killed them off easily, sustaining four gunshot wounds. No problem. I wanted to run up to Judith and hug her for the suit.

I had to get back to the lab, though. More alarms were sounding. I ran back up a fire escape, across some rooftops, down an elevator, through a secret passage, down some stairs and finally to the lab.

"Doc?" He was gone. "Doc?" I heard a noise in the vents. I readied my AR2, more than happy to shoot at Lamarr if he hopped onto me.

"Got you!" I heard Dr. Kleiner's voice from inside the duct.

"Doc! What the hell are you doing in there?"

"Oh, hello, Barney. Lamarr is hiding in this vent for the last time! I am going to seal the air ducts with sturdy, steel bars! we'll see how Hedy gets in there now!" I heard Dr. Kleiner crawling out of the vent. He emerged from the duct above the loft, holding the struggling headhumper in his arm.

"Geez, doc! I didn't know you could crawl air ducts! Why couldn't you do that at Black Mesa twenty years ago?" The doc ignored me but told me what to do

"Rather, you are going to install the air duct guards while I hold Hedy. I am sure you do not want to handle her."

Dr. Kleiner showed me some steel bars. "Simply weld them to the frame of the vent, and make sure that they are spaced tightly enough so that Lamarr cannot get through. They are already the correct size." The doc handed me a blowtorch and the front part of my CP helmet. I didn't wear it anymore because citizens might mistake me for a CP and kill me. "Wear it so that the sparks do not get in your face."

Two hours later, I had welded bars to all of the vents in the lab. I looked at my watch. 17:34.

I poured some health vials over the minor cuts I had gotten from the fight at S20, and covered my unit number with a piece of cloth, so that they could not know who I was. 18:05. It was already getting dark outside. The doc was typing at a control panel, fixing the teleport. Suddenly, I heard one of the radios in the room hum to life.

"This is Black Mesa East to Dr. Kleiner! Black Mesa East to Dr. Kleiner! Please respond! Over." It was Judith

Dr. Kleiner ran to the radio, turned a knob, and said, "This is Dr. Kleiner."

"Over." I finished what the doc had forgotten to say.

"The Combine has found us! Gordon has come to the base, but he has to go through Ravenholm to get back to Alyx! Wait a secon- AAAAAHHHH! No!" I heard a crash, an electrical zap, and then the radio went to static.

"Oh, dear."

"Crap."

Dr. Kleiner tried to radio Black Mesa East, but there was just static.

"Man, Doc. Why does nothing ever go right?"

"I fear the worst for everyone at Black Mesa East. Gordon seemed to have gotten away, but Ravenholm is the last place I would run away to. The Combine have created special rockets that carry up to six headcrabs. They crash right into the ground, and the headcrabs are let out. Ravenholm has been shelled by these rockets so many times, I doubt there is one human left there."

For the next half an hour, the doc tried to radio Black Mesa East through every radio in the lab, even my Civil Protection radio. "This is Dr. Kleiner to Black Mesa East. Please come in!" became the doc's mantra for 30 minutes.

"I might as well fetch dinner." I said to the doc. He was sitting at a chair, looking defeated and hopeless.

"Oh, yes. You're right."

I went to S20, which had been cleaned of dead bodies after I had left. It was barren and silent. The security camera had been disabled. I went to the food storage room, which might as well have been a bank vault. There was a thick, steel door with a coded lock. I was going to have to find another way through. I looked around and saw an air vent on the ceiling. I put a chair under the vent and shot it open. I crawled through the duct, looking through each vent as I passed them. Finally, as I looked through one of the vents, I saw boxes with labels such as FISH and MEAT and EGGS. I shot the vent open and jumped into the room.

I took two boxes at random and opened the vault door. It opened easily from the inside. I piled one box on top of the other, and ran back to the lab. On the way back, Two metrocops saw me and tried to take the food away. I shot them bot, after disabling the death sensors. (A/N from now on, when Barney shoots and kill a CP, he already disabled their death sensors.)

When I came back to the lab, the doc was trying to lock Lamarr in the cat carrier. He finally lured her in with some watermelon and shut the door.

"There!"

"Hey, uh, Doc? Food's here."

"Oh, good. Thank you, Barney. I had taken a box of dried little worm things. When I looked closer, I realized they were leeches.

"Excellent choice for dinner, Barney!" The doc chuckled. "Oh well, the Black Sea is chock full of these. Might as well eat them." The second box contained breadcrumbs and some kind of synthetic oil created by the Combine. So, dinner was breaded leech. Not that bad, actually. Tasted like fish sticks.

I finished dinner, said good night to the doc, and went up to the loft for bed.

End Day 12


	11. Morphine is the Best Medicine

Day 13

(Gordon is on Highway 17.)

With the morning came one of the most violent days of my life. The second I woke up, I heard gunfire outside. I couldn't see outside because the windows were boarded up. A bullet hit the window by my bed. Dr Kleiner. made sure all the windows were bulletproof, but the shot startled me. What the hell was going on outside?

I climbed down from the loft, to check the security monitors, but I was too drowsy to watch my step.

I slipped and my jaw slammed against a ladder rung. I felt something hard in my mouth, like an unpopped popcorn kernel. Crap. I had knocked out a tooth.

I ran to a shelf full of health vials, poured it into my mouth. I swished it around like mouthwash. This was turning out to be one hell of a day.

The doc came out from the teleport room, holding a clipboard and writing madly on it.

"Curse that blasted orbifold battery. I could have sworn it was in good condition!"

"Uh, doc?"

"Yes, Barney?"

"Do you have a tooth regenerator or some stuff like that?" I had spat out my tooth onto the ground. At least it was a tooth that had been decaying pretty badly. Good riddance. The tooth was yellow with black spots.

"Uh, no, Barney. What happened?"

"I slipped and lost a tooth. But I'm fine now."

"Very well, then."

"Hey, doc. What's going on outside?"

"I'm not quite sure. Check the security panel."

I scanned over all the monitors. There were hidden cameras mounted all around the lab, and Dr. Kleiner had found a scanner, painted a lambda symbol on it, reprogrammed it, and let it back out. But the camera that was hidden in the area where the firefight was going on didn't feed anything. The monitor was just static.

"I think the camera was shot accidentally. I'm gonna go check." I grabbed my AR2 and left the lab. I came out onto the rooftop and immediately saw what was going on. A mass execution. All citizens that were somehow related to the big fight in the Plaza of Stalin several days ago were being executed. Dead citizens were dragged off and vaporized. I watched from the rooftop. A new round of citizens were brought in. I counted twelve. They were told to stand against a bloodstained wall with their hands on their heads. There were six metrocops with SMGs, waiting for the signal to fire away. Two metrocops were guarding the place, scanning the area for someone who might try and stop them. Ten others were just standing around, ready to kill anyone who came by. Stopping the execution would be suicidal, I'd be dead before I could say, "I need to get patched up." I had no choice but to stay put.  
But then, I had an idea. I was still authorized to drive an APC, and there were two of them unguarded. The trick was getting into one unnoticed.

I ran back down to the lab, grabbed my helmet, and ran back to the rooftop. I climbed down a fire escape and casually walked across the street, to the wall where the execution was taking place. Metrocops were not authorized to use AR2s, so I left mine on the roof.

The last two citizens were being taunted, handcuffed, and put against the wall with the other ten. I picked up the pace a little, passing by every cop and discreetly disabling their death sensors. I came to the APC, climbed in, and killed the driver. Then, I fired up the APC. I put it into gear, revved loudly, and stepped on the gas. The speedometer was climbing rapidly, as I ran over the metrocops, guns blazing. In a few seconds, the executioning cops were dead, along with the ten others that were standing around. The remaining two were badly injured from the APC turrets. I stepped out of the APC, picked up an SMG, and killed them.

As I walked up to the citizens, they got a bit more tense. I looked like just another cop. I looked around, to see if there were any scanners. I took off my mask to reveal I was human.

I heard a sigh of relief.

"Okay, you guys. You might as well get the hell out of here."

"We're handcuffed."

"Oh, yeah. Just wait one second." I went to one of the dead cops. There was a tiny key on his belt. I grabbed it and unlocked the citizen's handcuffs.

"_Alert. Turbulence reported on Fremenik Street. S23 THACO, please contain_." A woman's voice blared throughout the area. An alarm followed.

"Everyone! Grab a gun and come with me! Go!" I yelled at the citizens. They all ran to a cop's body and grabbed SMGs. I ran to an APC, and started it up.

"Six of you, come with me!" Six citizens ran into the APC. I talked through a speaker to the remaining seven. "Get into the other APC and get the hell out!"

The doors to my APC closed, and I stepped on the gas pedal. The tires dug into the ground, and I drove off. I called one of the citizens to the gunner's seat.

"Just shoot the hell out of any cops you see. This trigger shoots plasma. This trigger launches a missile. This screen helps you aim." I pointed out the controls and returned my eyes to the road. The citizen was having the time of his life.

As we passed a group of cops running to the execution site, the citizen fired a missile that took them all out.

I drove onto a ramp that led to a freeway. It was used as a road for APCs to get somewhere fast. A train track ran along the freeway. There were old speed limit signs, setting the speed limit to 100 kilometers per hour, which was roughly 60 miles per hour.

The signs meant nothing.

I accelerated to 95, not having an idea of where I was driving.

"APC 57, where are you going?! Get back to the turbulence site!" I ignored the radio and kept driving. I realized that I was driving aimlessly. City 17 was getting a bit smaller as I sped away. What was I trying to do?

"Hold on to your socks!" I yelled to the citizens behind me.

I turned sharply to the left, crashing through the divider and into the other lane. The speedometer dropped to 80. As I accelerated, it went back up to 100 miles per hour.

"Subject is heading southbound on Express Road 18!" I kept driving. The gunner was firing missiles at other APCs as we passed them.

I heard bullets ricocheting off my APC. I felt something explode under the car. A screen lit up by my face. "_Damage taken to left rear tire._"

DAMAGE!? I looked at the rear view camera. Some kind of helicopter was flying behind me, shooting the same kind of bullets as the APC.

"DESTROY THAT THING!" I yelled at the citizen next to me. He launched two rockets at it, but the stupid helicopter thing shot them down!

"_Damage taken to rear entry door_."

"SHUT UP!" I screamed at the monitor. I accelerated more, the speedometer flirting with 140 miles per hour, close to the limit of 150. I realized the helicopter was going to destroy the APC, so I had only one choice.

I slammed the eject button. The entire top of the APC was deployed, and my seat shot up.

The helicopter shot and killed most of the citizens while we were still in the air. My seat fell to the ground, deploying some kind of airbag so the fall was dampened.

The APC, now with no one controlling it, spun out of control and flipped over, slamming into the guardrail and catching fire.

I hopped off my seat and looked for potential cover. No such luck on a freeway. The helicopter fired another round of bullets, most of them hitting me. The gunner citizen was still alive. He was firing his SMG at the helicopter.

"GET OVER HERE!" I yelled at the citizen. I was spurting blood from my leg like a hose spurts water. I groaned.

I saw a wooden door on the side of the freeway. I groaned and hobbled/ran to the door. I shot it down with my SMG, and threw myself in. I was now right outside the freeway wall, by an apartment building. The helicopter made a beeping sound, and balls with lights on them were ejected from the helicopter. There were at least 50 of them, all beeping with blinking red lights. I threw myself into the apartment building. I took cover behind an overturned desk as the spheres exploded. The entire front wall of the first floor was taken out, exposing me to the helicopter's primary fire.

The desk was metal, so the helicopter could not hit me. As it paused to recharge, I hobbled up some stairs. The helicopter emptied its bullets onto the staircase, barely missing me. It paused to recharge again, I crawled into an empty apartment without windows.

I saw a health kit on a table.

I didn't even know if I could reach them. The world was fading away. I crawled to the table, and grabbed the health kit. I found a needle that was filled with some clear liquid. It had MORPHINE stamped onto the front.

Just what I needed. I gave myself a shot in the arm. The pain was numbed, but I was still losing blood. A health vial lay in the kit. I poured it onto my leg with my last ounce of strength. The wound closed a bit, bleeding lightly. A second health vial closed it completely. I let out a big breath. Citizens came into the apartment to see what went on. They saw me in a puddle of blood.

"Are you the guy they're after?" I nodded my head.

"They know I'm here." I said, weakly.

The citizens showed me a back door exit. I realized where I was, it was part of my old APC driving route. I hid behind a dumpster as the helicopter flew away.

I had some other wounds that I needed to hide. I fished around in the dumpster for an old towel, which I wrapped around myself. I walked until I found what used to be S20.

I painstakingly climbed up a fire escape, and went to the lab.

Dr. Kleiner was running some tests on the computer.

"Oh, hello Barney. What on Earth went on out there? You look terrible!"

"Long story." I poured health vials onto myself.

I lied down on a crate, and took a nap. When I awoke, I checked my watch. 19:00. Dr. Kleiner was drinking a soda. He accidentally dropped the soda onto Lamarr, who was napping by his feet. She woke up, squealed, and ran away.

I chuckled. "Well, Barney, Isee you are feeling better. Laughter is the best medicine!"

I laughed. "I guess you're right." I decided to go to sleep.

As I lay in bed, I said, "Doc? You're wrong. Morphine is the best medicine."

End Day 13


	12. The Suited Man

Day 14

_Before I begin, I'd like to say two things. 1) Thanks a whole lot, reviewers! and 2) I hate how Valve makes the days in Half Life mere hours. Let's say that Gordon comes to City 17 at 12:00 PM. It takes about five minutes to get to Dr. Kleiner's lab. But when Gordon comes into Black Mesa East, it is relatively dark outside, the sky is orange. When Gordon comes with Alyx to the scrapyard, it is dark outside! What takes an hour or two in real life takes a few minutes in the game! Then, when Gordon emerges from the Ravenholm mine, POOF! It's light outside again! This drives me insane! Wow. That was weird. Anyway, onto the story!_

I felt the ground shake. Not very violently, but enough to make me shoot up in bed. I grabbed a pistol by my bed crate. I looked around. The doc was snoring gently on his own bed crate. The shaking lessened slowly. I wasn't afraid. This earthquake was extremely light. The rumbling helped me get to sleep.

"Barney, wake up! WAKE UP!" I snapped my eyes open. The doc looked very frantic. His eyes were wide with fear.

"Whaddya want, doc?"

"Come down quickly and you will see!"

I really hoped the doc wasn't freaking out from something that really wasn't important, like his stupid headhumper was missing. But no, the doc's fear was justified.

While I was sleeping, Alyx had radioed Dr. Kleiner, saying that Eli had been captured and was a prisoner in Nova Prospekt. Gordon and Alyx had somehow managed to get inside Nova Prospekt, only to find that Judith was a spy for the Combine. They were going to send Eli to the lab, but at the last second, Judith had stepped into the teleport, and they were teleported away to some unknown place. But the troubling part was that Nova Prospekt had blown just as Gordon and Alyx were leaving. The doc was almost 100 sure they were blown to bits.

There was an awkward silence, as I thought of all the good times I had had with Gordon. Every time Dr. Kleiner locked himself out, I would race Gordon to the lab to unlock it from the inside, back at Black Mesa.

He had once blown up some scientist's lunch in a microwave, on the day of the Resonance Cascade.

He had stolen my gun from my locker, taken out the magazine, and put the gun back into the locker. He had kept it in his locker until I finally asked him where the magazine was.

And Alyx, she was one interesting kid. When she was a baby and had finished breastfeeding, she had barfed all over my uniform. Heh.

"But they might have survived!" I said, hopefully. "They might have gotten away before the explosion!"

"Then they would already be here, Barney."

"So that earthquake was Nova Prospekt blowing up?" I asked. That had to be one hell of an explosion.

I was sad, but I couldn't beat myself up for it.

I had some leftover breaded leech and left the lab. I had forgotten my AR2 on the rooftop, and was relieved to find it was still there, with a splatter of bird poop.

I wiped it off and left, with nothing to do. The Combine seemed to be paralyzed by the Nova Prospekt explosion, where all of their research was. Now, they seemed a bit weaker. The sun was just rising, creating a pink sky. It was ruined by the enormous Citadel, cutting through the sky like a knife. I wasn't a skyscraper. It was a skystabber.

As I was climbing down the fire escape, I realized something. The Combine were as weak now as they would ever be. It was high time that the City launched a rebellion. I was sure all of the citizens would go for it, seeing that they hated the Combine. I had seen a few instances of rebellion, but they were weak and taken down quickly. Even yesterday, the Combine squished any chances of rebelling.

I ran back to the lab. The doc was sitting at the computer, typing away. "Doc, come with me"

"What, what?"

"Come with me, Doc. I have an idea."

"I am not leaving this lab."

"Oh, yes you are. I saw Lamarr napping by his feet. "You know I hate that headhumper. I'll be more than happy to blast her guts out." I pointed the AR2 at Lamarr.

"You wouldn't."

"Oh, I would. Come with me, and take the camera you used to talk with Eli."

Dr. Kleiner stood up. He nervously took the webcam and followed me out of the lab, to what was S20 THACO.

"Barney, what is going on?"

I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me and locking it. I turned to the doc.

"I want you to set this up so that I can talk though the Breencast screens throughout the city, and on all of the TVs in the apartments. I imagine it can't be that hard, once I log in."

I entered my clearance number into the security panel. I was now enabled to do whatever a CP could do.

Dr. Kleiner set straight to work. He typed on the panel for about five minutes, occasionally saying things like, "We'll see about that!" and "I think not!"

I was bored out of my mind, searching the old bedrooms for beer. I found nothing.

"Okay, Barney. I think we're ready!" I ran to the security panel. Dr. Kleiner was hooking up the webcam to the console. "Just press this button and talk." The doc pointed to a button on the webcam.

"Step aside, doc." I sat down at a chair, and turned on the webcam. I saw myself on the screen.

"Hey, City 17. I hope you don't mind me cutting this Breencast short. I just have one thing to say. You probably felt that rumbling last night. Do you know what that was? That was the explosion of Nova Prospekt, a facility used for the Combine's research. Gordon Freeman came and blew it to bits. He is returning to City 17 as I speak."

_Meanwhile, at the top of the Citadel,_

"What the hell? What is going on?" Wallace Breen stared at the screen. He had just been cut short by something. He was explaining why Gordon Freeman is bad, and all of a sudden comes this stranger, saying that Gordon Freeman was returning. That was impossible. He had been blown apart!

Who was this man? Where was he? He called a soldier into the cast room. "Trace this broadcast and send troops to get rid of him!"

"Right away, sir." The soldier left.

He had no choice but to listen to that man's speech. He talked about how the Combine were as weak as ever, how "now is the time to rebel." Rebel!? Who was this person? Wallace tried to cut off the man, but it wouldn't work. He was locked out of the system.

The soldier returned. "I'm sorry, but we can't trace it. We don't have access to the broadcast stations anymore!"

"-So tell the nearest Civil Protection officer what you think of him. Okay, Breen, I'm giving access back to you. Try as hard as you can to discourage these citizens. It's probably not going to work. Ha Ha!" With that, I turned off the webcam, turning over controls to Breen again.

"Okay, doc. Thanks a bunch. But you should probably get out of here."

With that, the doc ran off, taking the webcam with him.

I had an idea of what to do, now. I was going to visit a bunch of apartments and encourage rebellion.

I ran out of the station, and across the street to an apartment. I shot the lock off of the door and charged into the apartment. Wow. This apartment sure got my message. A dead metrocop lay on the stairs, stripped of his suit and gun. Eeew. He had been clubbed in the head with a fire extinguisher, which lay on the ground next to him. It had a dent in the side. I climbed the stairs. Another metrocop had been shot, and sat against the wall, as if he was still alive. He had also been stripped of armor. Two citizens stood in front of me, in metrocop's clothing. They had smeared mustard onto metal armbands in the shape of a lambda, and held pistols. At that moment, they were kicking another dead CP across the hallway.

"Hey, you're the guy who interrupted the Breencast! Thanks a lot!"

"Hey, no problem. I see you got my message. What's your name?" I asked one of the rebels.

"Robert. Robert Sheckley. But you can just call me Sheckley."

"And you?" I asked the second rebel. "John Grigori. But I hate the name John and the last name Grigori, so you can call me Griggs. But I must say, there's no hope of beating the Combine! Not unless you get every citizen in the entire city to rebel!"

"That's what I aim to do. If a citizen kills a CP and takes their suit, then they are a rebel. They kill another cop, and that's another convert to rebellion. Pretty soon, the effect spreads through the city, and BOOM! Total uprising!"

Griggs scoffed. "Like that'll happen."

"Just you watch. And by the way, are there any other cops in the building?"

"Nah, we killed 'em all!" At this point I realized that the citizens did not have death sensor disablers. More cops were on the way. I trusted these two. They seemed to be good at fighting.

I ran to the roof of the building, across the rooftop to the next apartment building. Two cops were crushed by an overturned bookshelf. They were stripped of their suits as well.

There were three dead metrocops and one dead citizen on the stairs, and that was only on the stairs from the roof to the fifth floor. The hallway of the fifth floor was also filled with dead cops and citizens. The fourth floor was free of dead things, and was empty. But the third floor was buzzing with activity. There were seven rebels, all with SMGs. Dead cops littered the ground, stripped as well. I congratulated them on rebelling, and told them to keep at it.

I made my way through to the bottom floor. I counted this building as a rebel victory. But now, alarms were sounding. The Combine were as pissed as ever. APCs made their way through the streets, crashing through walls and sending CPs through the buildings to get rid of the rebels. My radio was going crazy, announcing cop's deaths every ten seconds. That was great, but the radio would not stop talking. Finally, I ripped it off of my suit, threw it to the ground, and shot it.

The next building was infested with live metrocops and dead citizens. The Combine had reacted quickly here. I shot my way through to the bottom floor, where there was a dead citizen in a closet. She had hanged herself.

I shot the rope that was holding her, and the body crumpled to the ground. I moved on sadly.

The next building was a complete rebel success. I could not find one dead citizen dead. The people here were very creative when they killed the cops.

One dead cop looked like he used to be on fire. I spat on a nearby stove. My spit bubbled, so the stove had been used recently. (OW!)

A rebel was sitting on a couch, drinking a beer. An unopened bottle lay on the ground next to the couch, as well as another dead cop. This one had been stunsticked.

I picked up the beer bottle. "A toast?" I asked him.

"To the uprising!" He said, cheerfully. I downed the beer and moved on.

I was amazed. I had given the Barneycast an hour ago, and I had counted 49 dead cops, 49 suited rebels, 22 live cops (before I shot them) and 28 dead citizens. Not too shabby!

As I was making my way across the rooftops again, I heard the all-too-familiar sound of propellers. Three helicopters were flying over the streets, ready to blow up a building with their mines.

One saw me and fired at me. "Aw, hell. Not AGAIN!" I yelled to myself. The other two helicopters followed what the first was doing. They focused on me, with their turrets blazing. I ran through another building, not stopping to check who had the upper hand there.

The helicopters seemed to have X-ray vision. Every time I neared a window, it would be destroyed by a helicopter and they would fire through the windows. They had surrounded the building, now.

I heard the horrible sound of the helicopters getting ready to deploy their mines. About 150 mines on the roof of the building was not good news. I charged out the door, onto the street. I took cover in a white van. All of the doors, windows, and seats were gone, but it was good cover. I heard an explosion. A huge one. All the mines on the building exploded at once. I was across and down the street, but a wave of plaster, dust, random bits of junk and rebar flew through the air. The car was being pushed a tiny bit by the explosion. When all the stuff settled, I could have passed for the Sandman, a villain in a comic my friend's kids used to read.

The helicopters flew away, pretty sure I was dead. I shook myself like a dog, sending plaster everywhere. I looked around. Bodies littered the streets. The buildings nearby had also been partially blown apart. The building that was originally mined was gone.

I counted the dead bodies and kept moving. The Combine were constantly finding me and radioing for backup, so there was not one point where I was not being shot at.

I was pretty badly hurt, now. A metrocop had come up to me silently and slammed a stunstick against me. I dropped to the ground. He pulled out an SMG and fired continuously at me until a rebel came and beat him down with a cash register.

He dragged me to the side of the street, where he had stocked a few medical kits. He gave me a shot of morphine and poured healthvials onto me.

"Hey, thanks. Maybe you should suit up to show that you have healthkits, you know, like a a medic."

"I'll have to see if something like that is available, but good idea."

The medic accompanied me through several buildings before he was shot by a metrocop.

I had lost track of the time. It was already dark when I emerged from the last building of the day. As I headed back to the lab, I was ambushed. An APC suddenly turned the corner in front of me. It launched rockets and fired turrets, injuring me even worse than I already was. I fell to the ground. I was certain I was about to die.

But then...

A suited man walked out of nowhere as time froze.

End Part 1, Day 14

_Oh, yes. G-man had to interfere. _

_Hey, guys! I'm back from a 3 day long backpacking trip. (That's why I couldn't update sooner, for the people who have this story on alert and those who just check fan fiction each day.)_

_First real cliffhanger, hope it goes well. _


	13. Missile

Part 2, Day 14

The strange man straightened his tie and grinned evilly. He had a grey suit and unnaturally blue eyes. He held a briefcase in his right hand, and, to my surprise, it had the Black Mesa logo on the side.

"Misssster Calhoun, I believe thiss is the first time we meet." The man hissed like a snake when he pronounced his s's.

"I do not believe Dr. Freeman told you about me, so I will do ssso myssself. I am the only reason he ssstill is alive today. I was the one who kept him in his unconscious ssstate of mind. I decided that the twenty years between Black Messsa's demise and now were unimportant. I have done the sssame with you. You, as well as Miss Vance and doctors Kleiner, Vance, and Mossman are crucial to the grand scheme of things, which issss better left unknown."

I tried to run away. I couldn't move. I couldn't pick up my AR2.

The man continued. "Ssssince I have no intention of letting you die so, well, easily, I will...extract you from here." The man chuckled as the world faded away. I seemed to be lifting off the ground. The world vanished.

"Barney! Wake up! How on Earth did you get in here? I do not recall you coming in here!"

I was lying smack dab in the middle of the lab, Lamarr crawling over my stomach.

"What do you mean, doc?" I stood up, swatting the headhumper off of me. "I was just-" I realized I didn't remember what happened. I remembered an APC trying to pancake me. I remembered I was badly injured. But I didn't remember how I got to the lab. Oh, well. I decided not to drive myself crazy with questions. I looked at my watch. It was 1:27 according to my watch. It was really late, so I decided to go to sleep. But I couldn't, for some reason. The rebellion wasn't sleeping. Why the hell should I?

I climbed down from the loft, grabbed a soda, and left the lab. But I was missing something. My AR2 was gone, and I didn't know how long it would be until I found another one. I decided to find an SMG from a rebel-controlled building. I left the lab, hiding from scanners and sentry towers.

I came to a building that had been covered with anti-Combine graffiti. I cheered for whoever made it.

As I came inside the building, I noticed it was a makeshift hospital. There were countless shelves stocked with health vials and antiseptic and gauze. Every apartment was a separate room, and rebels were running around, tending to the needs of the injured citizens.

One rebel had his entire left leg amputated and replaced with some kinda wood plank that hadn't even been sterilized. The place was really very depressing.

I came up to one of the rebels, who was sleeping on a mattress, with three SMGs on the ground next to him. I tapped him on the shoulder.

"What're ya interruptin' my sleep fer? I was getting my dream on!"

"Can I get a gun?" I pointed to one of the SMGs.

"Err... Mmmkay."

I grabbed an SMG and left the "hospital" with my energy level dwindling. I needed coffee. And S27 THACO was the nearest station with food supplies.

I couldn't take on the entire station alone. S27 was the second largest station in the city, right behind S32.

I entered another rebel-controlled building. This one was half hospital, half normal apartments.

"Who's the guy in charge?" I asked a rebel that passed me by.

"Top floor, apartment 8. He's the only one in there."

I climbed the stairs to the fifth floor, and entered apartment 8. A man was snoring heavily on a couch. I gently shook him awake.

"Who are you and whaddya want?"

"I'm the guy who interrupted the Breencast, Barney Calhoun. I was thinkin, do you need food supplies?"

"We need all the supplies we can get. The ration dispensers shut themselves off, and health vials are hard to come by."

"Well, I have an idea. You know S27 down the street?"

"Uh huh. They keep sending squads to nearby areas to get rid of rebels. They're slowly winning, too."

"I think you guys should raid the place and take their supplies. You won't have problems for months!"

"Are you crazy? That place has about 50 cops! And they're all armed to the teeth!"

"If we get a good chunk of rebels from the area to storm the station, I guarantee you'll win."

"It just might work." The man grabbed an SMG and started leaving the station. But, a corner of my eye looked out the window. There was some kind of black missile flying through the air, leaving a white trail behind it.

"What the hell? What is-" My question was immediately cut short by an enormous crash. The missile crashed through the ceiling, crushing the man in charge. I was thrown backwards by the impact. That missile thing crashed right through the floor, all the way through floors until it crashed on the ground floor.

Plaster flew everywhere. In my mouth, in my hair, in my eyes, in my nose, in my ears. I stood up. I was speechless. The missile hadn't exploded, giving me the impression that it wasn't really a missile.

I looked through the enormous hole made by the "missile" I could see the first floor, and blood was everywhere. The station commandant had been crushed, along with another rebel.

"Oh, man!" I then realized that the end of the "missile" opened and my friend the headcrab popped out. I realized the missile was a rocket or shell used to carry headcrabs. I heard gunfire as the headcrab was killed. Just as soon as it was killed, another popped out. I needed to get down there and help!

I jumped from floor to floor through the hole, until I was at the bottom floor. Four dead hedcrabs lay on the ground, and a worried rebel stood nearby, reloading his SMG.

"What was that?" He asked me, in a horrified tone of voice.

"Headcrab shell. I guess this is how the Combine get headcrabs to wherever they need to go."

At that moment, another headcrab shell crashed through the ceiling. The rebel and I were halfway through killing the headcrabs, when a third shell slammed into the ground. A fourth. A fifth.

Metrocops burst through the door. The headcrabs ignored them, and all jumped for me. Rebels were coming down to the first floor, getting rid of the headcrabs and metrocops. I had to get out of here before something really bad happened.

Headcrabs were leaping around. Two citizens were being zombified, their stomachs slowly opening and their nails growing longer and sharper. The rebels were fighting a losing battle.

I got the hell out of the building, and ran as fast as I could back to the lab.

--

I shot up a fire escape and into the lab. As soon as the vending machine door shut behind me, I let out a sigh of relief.

"Barney, what happened? You are covered in filth!"

"Congrats, doc. Happy 50,000,000th anniversary of you ask me that question!" The doc laughed.

"It is extremely late, Barney. Go to sleep!"

With the events of today, I was more than happy to flop onto my bed crate and dream about eating roasted, breaded Lamarr.

End Day 14


	14. Infiltration

Day 15

Go team USA!

As soon as I opened my eyes, I remembered my plan to take over S27. As I thought it over, I realized how stupid an idea it was. Why did I want to take on the second largest STHACO so quickly? I realized the rebellion needed time to grow, get stronger.

So, my new goal was to lead a push on S25. Their commandant had died in the Plaza of Stalin battle, and as far as I knew, they hadn't picked a new one yet. They would be clueless and unorganized.

But first, I needed to check the damage on the shelled building. I grabbed my SMG and left the lab, saying goodbye to the doc.

--

As I was climbing down the fire escape, a bullet whizzed past my ear, ricocheted of the metal of the ladder, and hit me in the stomach.

I spun around. I didn't see anyone. I put my finger on the SMG and jumped off the fire escape. I landed a bit clumsily, so I fell over.

Another bullet hit me.

I stood up, raising my SMG. Still no one. Another bullet hit me in the back. I spun around. No one.

Suddenly, I saw some very fast moving thing jump off a roof and land. It was dressed in black, and, as far as I could tell, it was part of the Combine. It sprinted towards me, its gun aimed at my head. I was stunned. What was it?

The enemy had a gun with a silencer, so it fired at me twice more.

Finally, I started shooting at it. It must have seen it coming, because it jumped about three feet in the air, dodging the bullets. It landed in a crouching position, fired at me again, then sprinted away. The bullets it shot at me hadn't done much damage by themselves, but if it kept doing what it was doing, I would be dead soon. I hid behind a dead tree, ready to shoot blindly.

I heard footsteps running my way, and so I came out of cover and fired until my hands felt like they were about to combust.

The black thing was still running at me, and my magazine was spent. It took advantage of this, and shot me five times before sprinting away into cover again.

I reloaded angrily. I tiptoed towards the hiding place of the black Combine. As it came out of cover, I slammed my SMG's butt at the head.

The thing fell backwards. I was surprised at the lack of armor this thing had. I shot it in the head 12 times, ensuring its death.

I bent down to examine the body. This thing was some kind of Combine, with weak armor. The armor was skintight leather. I confirmed it was a woman after examining the body.

The eyes were exposed, but I had messed up the face pretty damn badly when I killed her. Blood was in abundance now.

I looked at her weapon and recognized it immediately. It was a Desert Eagle with a silencer. I had worked with Desert Eagles before I had my Glock back at Black Mesa, so I knew what to expect.

I unscrewed the silencer and threw it away, since I decided I didn't need it. I searched the "ninja" and found a few clips of ammo, which I pocketed, along with the pistol.

--

With that done, I went on to the building that had been shelled. The front door had been busted open by metrocops yesterday. The shells were still embedded in the ground, and dead citizens, headcrabs, zombies, and metrocops littered the floor. I looked through one of the holes in the ceiling, and I could see the sky. This building was clear of living things.

I moved onto the next building. This one was also a rebel-controlled building. I found the person in charge yelling at two rebels.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST IT?!"

"Hey, sorry! We were ambushed by some CPs!"

"YOU HAD GUNS! WHY DIDN'T YOU SHOOT THEM?! I'M SURE THAT BARNEY CALHOUN PERSON WOULD BE DISGRACED, ALONG WITH FREEMAN!"

"Actually, I'm fine with whatever they did." The commander looked up, very embarrassed.

"Barney! Heeeyyyy! Want a beer?"

I scowled at him. "I need your help. You know S25 in the next sector? I want to lead a push on that station to get supplies for the rebels."

The commander said that was a good idea. I explained that if he got the entire building to help, we could overtake the station and set up a base there.

"It just might work!"

The commander yelled at the top of his lungs through the building. "NEW MISSION! EVERYONE COME TO THE GROUND FLOOR FOR A BRIEFING! THAT MEANS EVERYONE! BE READY FOR A LOT OF FIGHTING!"

I heard cheering and tons of footsteps as rebels came running down the stairs, armed with SMGs. They settled on the ground

"All right, everyone. I want you to listen to Barney."

I didn't really know what to say. "Um, yeah. So, the plan is to infiltrate S25 THACO, get rid of the CPs inside. Metrocop stations hold lots and lots of much-needed supplies, like healthvials, ammo, food that doesn't taste like crap, weapons, suits, and decent beds. Ideally, we move everyone here into S25 and make it a rebel base. If we get enough rebels to storm their nearest metrocop station, we'll have a significant advantage over the Combine. So, I'm going to put on a mask so I look like any other cop. I'll come into S25, disable the cameras, kill the guards, and call you guys in. Then, do your worst. How's that sound?"

Everyone cheered.

--

On our way to the station, a metrocop emerged from a building. He was shot and killed immediately by the group. I grabbed his mask and put it on.

As I approached S25, I noticed one huge difference. An enormous metal barricade stood around the perimeter of the station. A control panel stood just outside the only gate through the barricade.

Civil Protection probably realized that rebels would come and try to overtake the base, so they built a wall around it.

So, I entered my login I.D, selected the barricade gate and pressed OPEN. I heard the gate screech open. Panels of the barricade parted and folded up, exposing the station entrance.

"Okay, everyone. Wait outside the door, outta sight." The rebels waited outside the door as I unlocked it and stepped in. It was almost exactly like S20, a security camera constantly scanning the area, a security panel on the wall.

But since the uprising had started, security had been increased. Five Combine soldiers guarded the hallway with shotguns. They ignored me as I came in. I walked over to the security panel and disabled the camera.

Then the fun began.

I killed one of the soldiers and yelled to the rebels to come in. I took off my mask and shot another soldier. Rebels flooded into the station, screaming. The remaining three guards had been taken out before I realized what was happening. The rebels charged throughout the station, killing everything. I stayed in the "lobby" of the station, ready to kill any cops who ran through the entrance to help. Five agonizing minutes of gunfire and screams ensued, but finally silence came. I heard footsteps, and a battered rebel emerged from the stairs.

"Come up." He said, weakly.

What a sight! Injured rebels lay groaning on the floor, and several healthy rebels searched cabinets in the hallways for health vials.

Dead CPs covered the floor. A few citizens were trying to knock down a locked door.

"Guys! Hold on! I can open it naturally!" I stuffed my finger in the lock, which opened the door. It was the food storage room. I guess S20 elevated its food storage security because of Alyx, while S25 kept their food in this room. Boxes adorned the walls, carrying pork and, to my surprise, shark filet and eel. I felt like I was in some kind of sushi restaurant within a closely guarded CP station.

I opened the doors to the bedrooms, giving access to ammo and beds. "Okay, let's do this in an organized way. Line up in alphabetical order."

Every rebel got into a line that stretched to the end of the hallway. Since there were two beds per bedroom in S25, I assigned the first two rebels in line to the nearest room, and so on. Once everyone had been assigned a room, I told everyone to follow me.

I went up another flight of stairs. This hallway was basically empty, but a huge metal door stood on the right side of the hallway. I entered my login I.D into a keypad on the right of the door, and the door opened with a groan.

I gasped. Crates covered every inch of the room. They all read "SUPPLY" and had bar codes. In small print was the contents of the boxes. The closest one to me read "H.K. Quantity: 3." I shot the crate, splintering one side of it to reveal healthkits, three of them. I realized what this room could hold.

"Okay, everyone. These are supply crates. Sort them by content in piles!"

The rebels happily obliged, taking boxes and throwing them into piles. Ten minutes later, the supply room had been cleaned out.

Stacks of crates covered the hallway. I walked along the hallway, reading off the contents. Pistols, SMGs, and shotguns were in some of the crates, while others held ammo for those three guns. Medical kits were in abundance, being the largest category.

We were in supply heaven.

But something I had noticed was that a small trapdoor lay in the middle of the now empty supply room. It had a padlock over the latch. First, I thought I couldn't open it. Then I remebered I had a gun.

I shot off the latch and lifted the trapdoor. It was heavier than I thought. I groaned as I opened it. A wave of nausea swept over me. The air was extremely musty. I told the rebels to wait outside the supply room. I carefully climbed down a ladder into the darkness below, SMG at the ready.

End Part 1, Day 15

(Woohoo! 25 reviews on my story and eleven medals for the Americans!)


	15. You don't know my father!

Part 2, Day 15

(NOOO! CHINA'S AHEAD!)

Squish. I stepped off the ladder onto the ground. I had climbed about 100 feet down. At first, I thought the "squish" was some sewage and I was in a sewer. There was a particularly nasty smell here, but it wasn't sewage. My nose burned as I stepped away from the thing that made a squish sound.

There was no light. My CP suit had a tiny flare gun that held only one flare. It only lasted for about half a minute. I yelled back up to the rebels in the supply room as loud as I could.

"HEY! FIND A CRATE WITH FLARE GUN AMMO AND TOSS IT DOWN!"

"WILL DO!"

While the rebels looked for flare gun ammo, I fired off the only flare I had. The little red circle of light hit the ground and started rolling forward. It started going up, when I realized I was in a huge pipe. It was riding the wall of the pipe like a snowboarder. It made a circle around the pipe, and stopped at rest by my feet. It was starting to fade. I at least needed to know what I had stepped in.

I turned around. "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGGGGGHHH!" A black, rotted body lay on the ground, It had a nice impression in its head where I had stepped.

"What's wrong down there?"

"Just a rotted BODY, thats all!"

"You sure you don't want one of us down there with you?"

"Make it two!"

"Will do. And by the way, we found flares, not flare gun ammo!"

"Okay! Toss the crate down!"

The only light, coming from the open trapdoor, was momentarily closed as they threw the crate down. It disappeared from view as it fell into the darkness. Finally, it smashed on the ground, exposing two flares.

I picked one up and lit it. I put it down by the ladder, to warn the rebels coming down of the dead body, because I sure as hell was not going to kick it aside. A minute later, the two rebels were standing right next to me, marveling over the rotted body.

"How old is it?" The first rebel asked.

"A year." The second said, quite sure of himself.

"Yeah, right. How do you know?"

"I worked with forensics at a police station near my home before the Combine."

"Liar."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are-"

"GUYS! Can we get going?" The rebels both looked at me.

"Uh, sure."

I picked up the flare and proceeded down the pipeline. It went both ways from the ladder, though.

I held the flare like a torch, illuminating the area ahead of us. Faded graffiti covered the walls. Two more dead bodies lay on top of each other. Another body seemed to have seen something horrible, as it's mouth was a big "O".

Some strange gun lay next to it. It was rusty and useless, so I didn't bother with it.

"Hey, I got a joke." One of the rebels said.

"Shut up." The second one says.

"So, this teacher asks this boy in school a math problem. She asks, "Timmy, if your father had ten dollars, and you asked him for four, how many would he still have left?" And then Timmy's like, "Ten." And the teacher's like, "You don't know your math." And here's the funny part. So Timmy's like, "You don't know my father!" At this point the rebel collapsed laughing. His laughs echoed through the pipe.

"Hold it!" I exclaimed.

"What?" The second rebel asked.

I rolled the flare forward. It was about halfway burnt. It stopped when it should have kept rolling. I heard some kind of thing inhaling and exhaling. The flare ignited the thing.

The rebel who told the joke was horrified. He began shooting his SMG at the creature. It made a horrible noise, like a dying animal that was being stuffed through a meat grinder. All three of us were firing nonstop at what I thought was a zombie. Finally, it collapsed. For some reason, I heard a rattling sound, like a snake.

"What IS that?!" I yelled. The flames on the zombie died down. Now, the only light came from the flare.

I bent down. I saw several black headcrabs attached to the zombie. I had a suspicion they weren't normal headcrabs. I guess different species of headcrabs made different species of zombies. The victim wore bloodstained blue jeans, and I couldn't even tell what his shirt was. His spine was exposed as well.

I shuddered. "You know, guys, let's head back. We need more people and more light and more firepower."

Both men hastily agreed. The silly rebel didn't say another word for the rest of the trip down the pipe back to the ladder.

On the way back, the flare began to die down, and I remembered I hadn't taken the other flare.

"Come on, guys. Let's run!" I yelled. We took off down the pipeline. The silly rebel tripped.

"I'll catch up with you guys! Keep running!" We had no reason not to follow his advice. After all, he had a gun.

Finally, the rebel and I reached the ladder up to S25. I began the climb up, the rebel right behind me.

Finally, I came to the surface. Two rebels stood by the trapdoor. They smelled me and held their noses as I left the supply room.

"Shut the hell up."

The two guards ignored me, but asked me where the second rebel was.

"He's coming. He tripped and fell behind."

"He doesn't have any light!" The first rebel reminded me.

"Oh, crap! You're right!" I grabbed a flare and hurried back down the ladder. I ignited the flare and charged down the pipeline alone.

I stopped in my tracks and screamed.

--

"What happened to him?" The rebel commander asked.

"I have no clue. Musta been a zombie or something."

I had found the corpse of the rebel in the middle of the pipe. His face had been torn away and his suit was ripped. He had claw marks in his back and front. When I had found him, his SMG still had an unspent magazine, and he had five magazines on his belt. I had dragged him back to the ladder, slung him over my shoulder, climbed up the ladder, and handed the corpse to the rebels.

I went to the laundry room and threw my suit in a special machine designed for washing CP suits, since mine was drenched in blood. My bullet guard, as I had come to call it, was also ripped in several places. I decided it was useless, so I threw it into the trash, put on fresh pair of clothes, and returned to the medic room on the bottom floor, Desert Eagle in hand. The rebel was being examined. The medic room was stocked with medical supplies, including microscopes, petri dishes, hot plates, and computers.

One rebel had worked as a doctor in a hospital before the Combine, so she was like the head medic. Her name was Marie, and she was kinda pretty.

"So what killed him?" I asked her.

"A zombie, probably. But I took a blood sample and found a venom in his body, called batrachotoxin. It's a venom found in poison dart frogs."

"There's no frogs down there!"

"Which is why I think there is a zombie that has batrachotoxin on it's claws."

"Aha. So that's what I saw in the pipe."

"Most likely."

I left the room, saying thanks to the doctor.

I checked on the other rebels, who were sleeping in their rooms. I decided to climb up to the roof, just for fun.

I climbed up the stairs, past the supply room to a door that read, "ROOF ACCESS". I unlocked the door and stepped outside.

It was evening, and the sky was orange.

On all four sides of the roof were what turned out to be mounted guns that shot AR2 type bullets! They sat on force field panels, that felt solid to the touch. I wondered why

From here, I could see over the barricade into the street below. If someone was here when we infiltrated the base, they could've alerted the others and we would probably have lost the battle. But the funny thing was, the CP's death alarms went off. Why didn't reinforcements come? Maybe because they were waiting to catch us off guard.

With this in my mind, I returned back to the bedrooms and called everyone out to the hallway.

"Okay, everyone. I suspect that the Combine might try and get the station back tonight. So, I am going to divide the thirty-four people into shifts, day and night. So, you five will go to the roof. There, you will find mounted guns. Feel free to use them against the Combine, if or when they come. You two will guard the entrance to the station, but stay inside the barricade! The seven of you I just instructed will be on the night shift. Now, you four will do the same thing on the roof, but during the day, while you two guard the entrance during the day. Use the radios on your suit and your flare guns to call for help if or when you need any. The rest of you will fight on your own. I will entrust you to the rebel commander while I'm away at night. I'll be at Dr. Kleiner's lab. Confusing?"

The rebels shook their heads. "Good." With that, I took an SMG and returned to the lab, problem free.

"Hello, Barney. What happened today and why aren't you wearing your suit?"

"Doc. Stop asking."

"Very well, Barney. But I have a surprise for you."

"What is it?"

"You'll have to wait until morning."

End Day 15

_Okay, reviewers. First off, THANKS! And second, I would like this question answered to continue with the story, please. When Gordon is teleported away, Lamarr jumps at him and gets teleported to some sandy area, and tries to pounce at a crow. From this point on, I assume he is gone. But when Gordon and Alyx return from Nova Prospekt and Dr. Kleiner opens the door to the teleport room, you can see Lamarr peering at Gordon from behind the door. When Dr. Kleiner steps aside to let Gordon and Alyx exit the teleport room, Lamarr is gone. When I noclip past the doc, the headcrab disappears. Can someone explain this please? If you give a legit explanation, I might include it in a future installment. _


	16. Citadel

Day 16

Distant gunfire was as abundant in City 17 as sagebrush is in deserts. With the morning came the knowing that the doc had a surprise. As usual, he was up before me, working at a computer, shotgun on the desk.

I climbed down from the loft and approached the doc. "So, what's that surprise?"

"Well, Barney, you know the alien slaves from Black Mesa?"

"Yeah."

"When Gordon went to Xen and killed the ruler there, they were all freed. Now, they are helping citizens escape the city through the underground railroad. Several assisted Eli in Black Mesa East before the Combine came, and now, I have my own vortigaunt assistant."

"So what's in it for me?"

"Well, two vortigaunts came yesterday, and one is more combat oriented than the other. So, I am giving him to you so he can help fight alongside and heal citizens."

"Heal?"

"The vortigaunts have miraculous healing power, so you have the decision of putting him to fight, or putting him to work as a medic."

"Sweet! Where are they?"

"They are sleeping in the little garage over there, but is not custom for them to wake up before 9:30 AM." The doc pointed to the metal door.

"But I need him now, so I can take him to the rebel base."

"You can try to wake them up, but I doubt they'll be happy."

"I have to." I walked over to the garage door and typed in the code. The door slid up, exposing the two vortigaunts to the light.

They were just as I had remembered them, green skin, on large red eye, sharp claws, triangular feet, and a claw sticking out from their chests. They both looked at me and made a weird groaning sound.

"It is not customary to be awoken at this hour!" One of the vorts snapped.

"The human is not informed of our customs. It is not his fault!" The other vort replied. I didn't want to tell them I knew full well their custom. They had very strange, rough voices

"Um, yeah. Which one of you is coming with me? I'm Barney Calhoun." I held out my hand for them to shake it. They just stared at it.

"That is the vortigaunt body language equivalent to saying "Rot in hell.""

"Heh heh. Ooops." I withdrew my hand.

"And I will be the one assisting you with your rebel duties, Mr. Calhoun." The vortigaunt who said that had a claw missing from his right arm. I guess that was the only way I could tell them apart.

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"I am Kel'agon, and my brother is Uriah. He will be assisting the Kleiner with his...duties. Since I am currently awake, I will come with you now."

He stepped forward, ready to follow me. I grabbed my Desert Eagle and SMG, and left the lab.

I led the vortigaunt down the ladder to S25. The vortigaunt ignored the distant gunfire that echoed through the city.

We were about to turn a corner when I felt a bullet in my back. A metrocop had found us. I fired at him once with my Desert Eagle. I forgot about the recoil, so the gun went flying back a few feet. I ran to get my gun, when I heard an electrical zap. I spun around to see that the Vortigaunt had killed the metrocop. I picked up my gun.

"Hey, thanks."

"It is not a problem for this one. I am used to it."

When I reached the barricade to the station, I yelled to the rebels guarding the door behind the barricade. "Okay, guys, I'm here with a vortigaunt."

"Hey, sweet. Come on in." I typed in my I.D and entered the station. I guess the rebels knew who the vortigaunts were.

As I was heading up the stairs to get everyone up and ready for the day, a rebel came up to me. "Uh, Barney? None of the door locks accept our fingers, so no one could get up to the roof last night."

"Oh, man. I should thought of that." I went back down the stairs to the security console. I sounded a wake-up alarm for the station, and then asked the rebel to stick his finger in a small hole in the console. When that was done, I pushed a few buttons, and the console made a beeping noise.

"Okay, now the locks in the station should let you through. I just have to get every person to do that."

I headed back up the stairs and into every room, reminding the citizens that they have to get up and get to the first floor to get their fingers registered.

An hour later, every citizen could get through the doors. It was breakfast time.

--

One citizen volunteered to make breakfast for everyone, along with Kel'agon. The dining hall was a room with two long tables, with stoves lining the wall, as well as a dishwasher. The cooks brought down five boxes of eggs and a bag of cheese. Half an hour later, he and Kel'agon had made a delicious breakfast for everyone in the station. I guess the Combine have food that takes minutes to prepare. After breakfast, while everyone was still sitting and talking, I briefed the group.

"Okay, everyone. Today, our mission is to expand. I want three-quarters of the group to go collect rebels from nearby buildings and overtake S29 THACO. Who's good with numbers?"

"Oooh! Oooh! Right here!" A young man was waving his arm wildly.

"Okay. Remember this number. I'll say it slowly. Zero seven six seven five zero zero one seven eight three. Repeat it back to me."

The rebel was very good with numbers. "Zero seven six seven five zero zero one seven eight three."

"Good. I'll have you repeat it later. But, as I was saying, most of the group will help overtake S29 today. Remember to disable the cameras before anything happens. If there is a barricade around S29, get through it with the pass code. Your fingers are registered to open the door. Find the supply room and do the same thing we did here. Kel'agon will be assisting the base commandant on this mission. The rest of the base comes with me to explore further down that pipe in the supply room. Line up in alphabetical order, please!" I finished the briefing and everyone stood up and started shuffling around. I divided the line by taking the first 24 and putting them on the mission to storm S29. I sent them on their way, wishing them good luck.

"Okay, the rest of you guys, I'm gonna teach you how to use a shotgun, because I'm making it a requirement to bring both weapons with you in the pipe. I'm gonna go grab the shotguns." I ran to the hallway outside the supply room, grabbing crates that held shotguns. Each crate held two. I made five trips to the supply hallway and back to the dining hall. Finally, everyone was told to pick up a shotgun.

"Damn, they're heavy!"

"Do we seriously have to carry these?"

"I like my SMG better!"

"How the hell do you reload it?"

This was ridiculous. "Everyone shut up! You never know when a shotgun will come in handy!" I picked up a shotgun and examined it. It was a bit different from the shotguns used in Black Mesa, but oh, well. I cocked it, braced myself for the recoil, and fired at a wall.

BOOM!

"Holy crap, that sounds strong!" One of the citizens exclaimed.

"Sweeeeet!" Another said.

"Okay, everyone, since you're so excited, cock the shotgun and fire it once I get out of the way." I stepped aside. Shotgun blasts rang through the room. Three citizens were blasted backwards.

I chuckled. "Okay, everyone, now you need to learn reload. I have a box of twelve shells here. I am giving each of you one." I gave everyone a shell. "Okay, you see this small slot on the bottom of the gun? Slide the shell in there and cock the gun. When the gun's empty, just put six shells in the slot and cock it. With practice, you'll be able to load an empty gun in about three seconds. Okay, now that that's done, make sure both the SMG and shotguns are loaded. Wield the one you like better and use the other for backup. The shotgun has a strap on it, so you can strap it on your back when using the SMG. I have a flashlight that I am going to tape to my shotgun. I'll be in front, lighting up the passage ahead of us. Half of you are required to carry three medkits. So...you five will do that." I pointed to the five rebels. "Okay, everyone. Get ready and meet at the supply room in two minutes!" I picked up my suit from the washing machine and suited up.

Everyone left the dining hall in an instant.

--

"Okay, everyone. Ready?"

"Yeah!"

"Of course!"

"What a question!"

I grinned. They were eager to get down there! I holstered my SMG and Desert Eagle, and strapped the shotgun to my back for the climb down. When I finally reached the bottom, I took out my shotgun and flipped the flashlight on. I waited until the rebels had climbed down, and began down the tunnel.

A citizen walked alongside of me. "Hey, Barney. Why are we doing this?" I swept my flashlight around the walls of the pipe. It was a huge pipe, the "ceiling" was about twenty feet above me.

"Why? You scared?"

"No."

"Well then quit complaining."

We walked deeper into the pipeline without problems. But as I turned a corner in the bend, everything went to hell.

--

(Ordinarily, this is a great place to put the end. But I'm gonna be nice and continue.)

My flashlight went over yet another kind of zombie with a different kind of headcrab. But he was the least of my problems. Six poison zombies were lying on the ground. The new zombie made a screeching noise, waking the poison zombies. All six of them plucked poison headcrabs off their backs and flung them at the group. Guns started to light up the pipe. I ran forward to one of the poison zombies and shot him in the head. That didn't do the trick. It took a one handed swipe at me. I ducked out of the way and shot it in the head with my shotgun again. That did the trick! The zombie crumpled to the ground. The bad part was, all the poison headcrabs on its back detached. One jumped at me, landing on my face. Its teeth dug into my face, and it injected venom. I felt horrible. I swatted it off my head, but the damage was done. I had been poisoned. I fell to the ground.

--

My head ached. Marie looked over me, unsmiling. "You have an unstable amount of batrachotoxin in your brain. If I had the right tools, I'd-" Marie was cut off by a knock on the medic room.

"Come in!" She said.

Kel'agon opened the door. "How does the Calhoun feel?

"My head aches."

"He was almost zombified by a poison headcrab." Marie explained to the vortigaunt.

"Ahh, the venom of a venomous headcrab is most dangerous. On my home planet, a technique was practiced to extract the venom."

(A/N I'm gonna be a little smart aleck here. The headcrabs aren't really poisonous, they're venomous. A California Newt is poisonous, while a rattlesnake is venomous. A poison dart frog is poisonous, a Black Widow is venomous. See the difference?)

"Can you do it?" I asked Kel'agon.

"It is unpredictable to perform the extraction on a member of the human race. This skill was only practiced on fellow Vortigaunts and Shu'ulathoi."

"Shu'ulathoi?"

"That is a story for a different time. I can try to perform the operation, but I cannot guarantee success."

"Well, go ahead!" I said.

"I request silence." Marie left the room.

The vortigaunt held up one of his claws to the air. He hummed and said something in his vortigaunt language. His claw started to glow a blue color. He held his claw to my forehead and held it there for a second. I went into some kind of paralysis. He kept humming and his claw returned to normal. But then, both of his claws glowed green. He hummed louder. He raised them into the air and brought them down on my forehead. The pain was excruciating. If I could scream, if I could move, I would scream and shove Kel'agon away. But I couldn't. He kept his claws on my head. The lights went out, and Kel'agon stopped humming. He lifted his claws off of my head. I could feel myself move.

"Ow! That hurt!"

"I never said it would feel good."

"Yeah, you never said it would hurt, either!"

"I am sorry. But I must call the doctor in." The vortigaunt opened the door to let Marie in.

"Well, did it work?"

"You must take a blood sample to see, as there is no painless method for me to tell."

Marie took a blood sample and put it on a microscope slide. She clamped the slide onto the microscope and looked through the lens.

"Wow! There is no batrachotoxin! This is a medical breakthrough!"

I was relieved, but still wanted to go back down to the pipeline and keep going. "Kel'agon, how did the mission go?"

"That is most fortunate. We have successfully gained control of station 29."

"YES!" I exclaimed. "So is the rest of the base back?"

"That is correct."

"I'm going back into the pipeline with the entire base this time!" I hopped off the table I had been lying on, now realizing I wasn't in my suit.

"Um, where's my suit?"

"On your bed. I had to change you into venom-free clothes."

"Oh. Heh heh."

"It's okay. I'm a doctor. I deal with it all the time."

I left the medic room and put my suit on. My weapons also lay on the bed. I didn't have a bullet vest, so I felt really vulnerable.

I passed by one of the citizens who had come alongon the pipe expedition. "Hey, what happened down there?"

"After you were poisoned, the group kept fighting but we realized that it was a lost cause, so we dragged you back up to the base and handed you over to Marie."

"So the zombies are still there?"

The rebel nodded.  
"I'm taking the entire base down in five minutes. And if someone, even me or the base commandant get poisoned, I want you to leave Kel'agon with us while the rest of the group moves on. Spread the word."

"Roger roger!" The rebel laughed and ran upstairs.

I went upstairs as well, to find that the rebel had done his job. The rebels had lined up down the hallway.

"Okay, everyone. Grab both of your weapons. Who doesn't know how to handle a shotgun here? No one? Okay. Let's go."

Everyone ran into their rooms to get their weapons, and went to the supply room. The base commandant, Kel'agon, and I brought up the front of the group as everyone climbed down the ladder.

Once everyone was down, Kel'agon held up his stomach claw. It started to glow a bright, bright green. The pipe was well illuminated now.

"Okay, everyone. Weapons ready." I cocked my shotgun and turned the corner. Two dead poison zombies and the one fast zombie were dead, but there were still four poison zombies. Kel'agon blasted some electricity at one of the zombies, injuring him but waking him up. The other three stood up as well. Kel'agon held his claws in the air and slammed them onto the ground, creating an enormous wave that knocked the zombies off of their feet. I ran up to one and shot it in the head. It was the one Kel'agon had attacked earlier, so died. The headcrabs on it detached, and I ran back to let the rebels take care of them. The zombies were dead before I knew what was happening.

A poison headcrab jumped at my head. One of the rebels fired his shotgun at the headcrab in midair, knocking it down and killing it.

"Hey, thanks!"

"Anytime! Well, maybe except for when I'm sleeping."

--

We proceeded farther into uncharted territory. Three barnacles hung from the pipe. One of the rebels didn't see it until she bumped into its tongue. The tongue wrapped around her neck so tightly that I heard a crack, and the body went limp. One of the rebels shot the barnacle, but it was too late. One of the men hoisted the dead rebel's body over his shoulder.

"I'm gonna head back. Is that okay?"

"Fine." The base commandant waved him off.

I was thinking maybe to go back, but I realized that we kept getting distracted from going farther. We kept going.

Finally, the tunnel began to get lighter. As we rounded the bend, my mouth dropped.

We were at the base of the Citadel.

End Part 1


	17. The Other Me

Part 2, Day 16

_(Note that the namesake of this chapter comes late in the chapter.)_

"No way." I craned my neck to see the whole Citadel, but I guess that was impossible since the top of the Citadel vanished into the clouds.

"I could have sworn it was going to be harder to get to a place like this." The commander said.

"Wow." I said. My mind was racing. The bottom of the Citadel was 20 yards in front of me. I stepped out of the pipe into the enormous pit that was dug in order to build the Citadel. The ground rumbled with the constant moving of the Citadel.

"Everyone! Come out here!"

The group nervously moved out of the pipe and into the place I was standing.

"Look! Up there!" One of the rebels yelled.

About fifty feet above us was a walkway leading into the Citadel from a closely guarded checkpoint. That was the only way to simply walk right into the Citadel, I guessed. Train tracks also ran into the Citadel from City 17 and beyond.

"Do you realize that all we need is some kind of grappling gun to latch onto the walkway and get inside the Citadel? We're already behind the security checkpoint." I told the group.

"Well, the sooner the better. Let's get back to the base and see what we can do." The base commander suggested.

"All right, everyone. Head back!" I yelled.

The group moved back into the pipe and through the twisting passages. "Hey, Barney. Do ya think Gordon's still alive?"

The base commander and I brought up the rear of the group, while Kel'agon illuminated the passageway in front.

"I hate to say it, but no. I thought that they made it out just in time, but then they would already be here."

"Good point, I guess."

Finally, Kel'agon illuminated the ladder back up to the base. Everyone climbed up the ladder in excitement.

When everyone was out of the pipeline, I shut the trapdoor and led the group down to their rooms. Everyone got settled and took naps while I went down the stairs to check with the doc.

I came down the final flight of stairs and gasped. Marie lay on the ground. She was breathing heavily.

"Combine... from the roof... trashed the... medic room!"

Dead metro police littered the floor.

"What on Earth?"

I helped Marie up. She had a gunshot in her back. I supported her and walked her to the medic room. She was right. It had been trashed. All the equipment was broken. Health vials lay in shards on the ground, their contents spilled all over the floor. I lay Marie down on the liquid to let her wound heal. I helped her back up and sat her on a chair.

"Now, what happened?" I asked.

"Somehow the Combine came from the roof of the building. They just rammed down the door and charged into this bottom floor. I had left my office to see what went on, but one of the cops shot me into the back. I pretended to be dead while they looked around the place. One just shot up this room while the others tried to hack into the control panel. Luckily, I had my SMG holstered, so I shot them all before they knew what hit them."

"So they just rammed down the door to the roof when they didn't have access via their fingers?"

"Right."

"I'm gonna go out and see what they did with the security panel." I left the medic room and walked over to the panel. Right away, I saw that they had tried to open the barricade outside. They had almost done it, too. I secured the barricade and radioed the doc.

"Doc! Come in, Doc! This is Barney!"

Dr. Kleiner appeared on the screen. "Yes, Barney, what is it? I have problems of my own to deal with at this moment!"

"Doc, the Combine broke into the base. I doubt we're safe here anymore. We need to overtake S31. It's the largest base in the city and the most secure. I just might need your help at some point."

"Well, I have a problem as well. A manhack burst through one of the windows to the laboratory while I was working with Uriah. He does not know how to use his attack, so I, in the end, shot it with my shotgun. But I suspect that the Combine know about my lab. You must come to the lab and help me fix the window and pack up the laboratory."

"Oh, fine. But I think you're overreacting."

I ended the conversation and ran up to the rooms to wake everyone up. "I don't think staying here is a good idea. The Combine came while we were gone, they just rammed down the door from the roof. Marie, our medic, killed them all, but we should evacuate the place as soon as possible."

Instantly, everyone started talking nervously to each other.

"By nightfall," I continued, "We should be ready to leave the station at a moment's notice. This means that you should be cleaning up your room. When I return from Dr. Kleiner's lab, you should all be ready."

With that, I left the station. I made my way through the war- torn streets. Other apartments had been blown up, and metrocop chatter could be heard, even without my radio. I held my SMG close, in case of an ambush.

The rebellion was definitely in full swing. Graffiti covered buildings where rebel activity existed. One piece of graffiti showed a metrocop cuddling a baby. It was hard to make out at first, but I realized that the enormous red bubble letters read, "Caste". Whatever that was.

A search party of metrocops came out of a building. All four of them opened fire on me. My bulletproof vest was gone, so I took cover behind a car. I braced myself, came out of cover, and opened fire. I received more gunshots than I expected. The pain was extreme. Finally, I got my bearings and shot them all up.

All four were killed relatively easily. I limped into a building, received a few health vials from the rebels in the building, and continued on my way. Finally, I came to S20 and the fire escape. I climbed up the ladder and eventually down to the lab.

Dr. Kleiner was sitting at his desk with a worried expression on his face. He was typing rapidly, and, as usual, he didn't see me come in, and as usual, jumped when I spoke.

"You rang?" I asked.

"Aahh! Oh, hello, Barney. I'm glad you came."

"Where's Uriah?"

"Well, after the attack from the manhack, he was so spooked that he just ran right out of the lab. I have no clue where he went. He is not, shall I say, the most faithful of his species. Well, enough of that. I just need some assistance to move some of this furniture out of the lab. First off, I want to get rid of the sanitizing tubes."

"Huh?"

"The tubes that are filled with orange liquid. I am going to dispose of the liquid, and I want you to take the tubes away." The doc walked over to the control panel for the tubes, and pushed a large red button behind a plastic case. The top of the tubes sprung open, and the liquid began to vaporize. In under a minute, all that was left was the glass tubes.

"I have to drag them somewhere and get rid of them?"

"Yes, once I detach them from their terminal."

He pushed a few more buttons, and an enormous "WHOOSH!" sounded as air was released from the terminal. I picked up the tube, which weighed just about as much as a 12-year-old boy that was slightly overweight.

I set the tube on the ground and rolled it across the lab, out of the entrance, through a doorway on the right, and set it down. I did the same with the other tubes. Meanwhile, the doc had been typing at his computer once again.

I was about to ask him what I should do next, bu the security panel lit up. A strange man with a fancy mustache appeared on screen.

"New Little Odessa to Isaac Kleiner! New Little Odessa to Isaac Kleiner! Come in, Isaac!"

The doc shot up from his seat and ran to the control panel. He pressed a few buttons and talked. "Odessa! I haven't seen you since, well, I have no idea! What can I do for you?

"You can understand right now that we have captured a Combine dropship and are sending it to the train station plaza full of rocket propelled grenade launchers! They are very effective in dispatching gunships and large groups of Overwatch soldiers!"

"Really! Well, do you want a group of rebels to meet the ship?"

"Ideally."

"Well, thank you, Odessa!"

Dr. Kleiner ended the conversation with this man and turned back to me. "That was Colonel Odessa Cubbage, one of the Resistance leaders on the coast. He is sending us a shipment of rocket launchers via a Combine dropship, although I certainly cannot understand how he did it.

"I can lead a group to receive the stuff. I'll head over right now, in fact."

"Oh, fine. Go ahead."

With that, I left the lab and made my way down Fremenik street to the rebel base. It was already dark, so I expected all of the rebels to be ready to leave. I was right. I entered the station to find all the rebels sleeping. They looked very ready to leave. The medic room had been cleaned out. If we pulled out now, it'd be like nothing ever happened. I woke up the base.

"Mmmkay, everyone. Time to leave. We're going to receive a shipment of weapons sent to us by a rebel base on the coast. Everyone, get up and pull out!"

The rebels came out of their rooms and stood at the ready. I led them out of the base and former S25 THACO and to the train station plaza. When we came to a gate, I disabled the force field and let everyone through. The Citadel wall, the thing that tore up the city for expansion of the Citadel, had reached the plaza. In a week, the plaza would be completely crushed. A sentry tower jutted out from one of the buildings. A metrocop had situated himself there, and fired a flare gun.

"Aw, crap. We've been spotted!" The rebels quickly killed the cop, but all we could do now was wait for the dropship.

I ran to a control panel by one of the gates and made it so that only rebels could pass through the force field. We were safe for now, but the Combine could easily blow up the gate or do something like that. Everyone stood around the plaza anxiously. Finally, The dropship appeared in the distance. From what I could tell, it was carrying a black capsule. It slowly flew towards the plaza. But the metrocops were already at the gate, trying to get through the force field. The dropship flew closer.

The metropolice began hoisting each other over the top of the gate. Rebels were trying to keep them at bay while the dropship came closer. But the rebels were slowly being overwhelmed. Scanners flew into the plaza and took pictures of the rebels, temporarily blinding them. The metrocops took this opportunity to kill the rebels. They were flooding into the plaza. More citizens were killed. Finally, the dropship flew over the plaza. Thrusters on it had some kind of blue energy in them. The dropship lowered slowly. The metrocops had killed 90 percent of the rebel group. Kel'agon was clawing up a metrocop.

The dropship hovered a few feet off the ground. The door to the capsule was thrown open, and a man hopped out with an RPG. He fired at a large group of cops. They were all blown away by the explosion. I killed another cop and ran up to the man.

Over the gunfire, he said, "There's a whole bunch of RPGs and ammunition in here. Grab one and fire away!"

I hopped into the dropship capsule. Tons of crates held ammo, as well as a few large green crates with pictures of rockets on them. I grabbed an RPG that already had a rocket in it. I hopped out of the capsule and fired at the sentry tower. The explosion sent it crashing down on top of a cop. A few other rebels had equipped themselves with RPGs, but they weren't as experienced with them as I was. They went flying backwards as they fired. At least the rockets killed a few cops.

I felt the ground shake. Several metrocops retreated the plaza.

"What's going on?" I asked out loud.

Time seemed to stop. The world lost color. A suited man came out from the dropship capsule.

"Well, Mister Calhoun, we meet once again." The man grinned in a way that made me wonder whether he was on my side or not. And I had never met him before. What did he mean "once again"? The man continued. "It seems only a few daysss ago you were in this same circumstance, with untimely death coming your way. This is a similar circumsssstance. Death is, for you, literally around the corner. Although, I find myself saving your life again. Isn't it funny how things... repeat? Well, you have seen and done so much in a little over two weeks. I think you deserve to see a little background of how you got into this hellish nightmare in the first place. So sssit back and relax, Misster Calhoun. Sit back and relax."

The world went dark. I heard voices. Laughing, joking voices. "So then he said, "I see you've met my dog!" Other voices began laughing.

I found myself sitting between, well, myself and a man I immediately recognized as Dr. Rosenberg. I was in a van. Another scientist from Black Mesa was driving, and yet another sat in the passenger seat.

"What the hell?" I asked out loud.

No one answered. I tried to tap Dr. Rosenberg on the shoulder. My finger went right through him. The other me was laughing at the joke that had just been cracked.

I looked out the window. We were on a highway in the desert. A barbed wire fence ran along for miles along the road. Nothing was visible except sagebrush, power lines, and the fence. The desert was huge.

The other me said to the others in the van, "Hey, when we get to Albuquerque, I'm buying us all beers!"

The people in the van cheered. The van rode on for about ten more minutes before I heard and felt rumbling.

"What's that?" Dr. Rosenberg asked.

"Oh, NO! Look outside!" The other me screamed. All the scientists looked out of the windows. I did as well. An F-14 jet was flying overhead.

"Not the military!" The driver screamed. The jet fired a rocket. It crashed into the road in front of the van, sending shrapnel through the window. The driver was killed immediately, blood flying everywhere. The other me was sitting behind the driver, and only got a few bits of shrapnel. The car, now with no one controlling it, veered to the side, crashed through the barb wire fence, and flipped over. I didn't feel anything, because it was just a flashback. I didn't flip over with the car like everyone else did. I just found myself standing outside the wreck. I ran up to Dr. Rosenberg. He looked pretty dead. The scientist in the passenger seat was dead as well. The other me was just groaning. The strange suited man walked out of nowhere again and confronted the other me.

"Well, Missster Calhoun, It appears you are in quite a predicament. Your colleagues have been killed, and you are in the middle of a desert in New Mexico. The closest civilization is 150 miles away. At a time like this, the oddsss are against you. But... I am not one to abide by odds. Ssso, I will simply extract you from here until I see fit for you to... return."

The world faded again. I found myself back at the train station. Time was still stopped and there was still no color. The suited man chuckled. "And I kept my promise, did I not? Well, Mr. Calhoun, I think that too much has happened today. You deserve a ressst."

The world faded to black once more.

End Day 16

(The way things are going, I will be able to update to both of my stories at least once per weekend unless that weekend is busy or I'm lazy or something like that. So I hope you enjoyed this latest installment.)


	18. Back to the Plan

Day 17

"Barney! Barney! How in God's name did you get in here?" Dr. Kleiner was looking over me a bit angrily.

I didn't remember coming into the lab. I remembered the shipment of rockets to the train station plaza. And for some reason, I knew how I got to City 17. But then again, I didn't. I just remembered a man's voice talking to me after I had been badly injured by the jet missile.

"I went through the window."

"I replaced the window while you were receiving the shipment of rockets. That is impossible. I just found you lying here!"

"I really have no clue, Doc."

I stood up. I had been lying on the floor, since Dr. Kleiner had moved my bed crate out of the lab. It looked pretty barren.

"Well, since you are here, I need your help to pack up the rest of the lab today."

"What happened yesterday in the train station plaza?"

"When the surviving rebels saw that you were gone, they took the RPGs and went to rebel-controlled buildings. They are making several trips back to the dropship capsule to get more RPGs. Kel'agon simply came back here. Now, he is sleeping in the HEV suit room.

I didn't bother waking him up. I noticed that the doc had boarded up the window frame entirely, not letting any light shine through at all. The lab was now lit only by lamps.

I remembered my original plan to take over S31, the largest station in the city. I wanted to continue, but not without Kel'agon. So, I simply waited around until 9:30. I opened the little garage. Kel'agon was lying on the floor, breathing gently.

"Kel'agon. Wake up, it's time to go."

He groaned. He got to his feet and stretched.

"The Calhoun is alive! Thank the Shu'ulathoi! What does the Calhoun wish to do today?"

"I want to infiltrate S31 THACO and turn it into a rebel base. But it's in the next precinct, so we better get moving."

"Indeed."

Kel'agon followed me as I left the lab. Right as I exited, I noticed the boarded up elevator to the left of the vending machine door. "Do you know where that elevator goes?" I asked Kel'agon.

"I believe it leads down to the street."

That was handy if I could get it working. Much better than going through a bunch of secret passageways, up an elevator, climbing some broken stairs, out onto the rooftop, going across the rooftop, and down a fire escape.

Oh, well. It would have to wait for another time.

When we came to street level, The first thing I noticed was a heap of... something in the road. The second thing I noticed was a destroyed building and dead bloody rebels lying around. A charred rebel lay on top of the rubble. "What the hell?" I asked aloud.

Upon closer examination, I couldn't figure out what it was anyway. I was sure it was some synth creation by the Combine, as the logo was stamped on a certain part of the heap. The thing probably was killed while I was asleep in Dr. Kleiner's lab. There were three "legs" with sharp ends. They stuck out of a large pod about the size of a motorcycle. A gun stuck out of the pod.

The entire body was metal except for the underside of the pod, which was squishy and wet.

A medic came running up to us. "I see you found the Strider. Not too pretty, isn't it?"

I was speechless.

"What is the Strider you speak of?" Kel'agon asked the medic.

"It's like the Combine ultra weapon! They fire plasma bullets, but when they're real pissed they can destroy buildings and impale people." The medic gestured to the dead rebels around the dead "Strider".

"How did you kill it?" I asked.

"With a lot of rockets. Hey, you might wanna go help the other guys to unload the dropship capsule."

"O...kay." The medic didn't seem to be that concerned about the huge beast.

I ran to the train station plaza. A barricade guarded the entrance to the plaza, which I promptly opened and ran into the plaza. A passageway between two buildings over the street had been knocked down, leaving a giant hole in one of the buildings. A rebel hopped out of the hole and slid down the collapsed passageway onto the street.

"Hey, guys? Gonna help us unload the capsule?" He asked.

"Yeah." I said. I ran to the capsule. The dropship was gone, it had probably flown away. There were three rebels with RPGs, guarding the site. I tried to pick up a green crate, but I found it impossible to lift.

"What is in that thing?" I asked another rebel.

"It's an unlimited ammunition box. I don't know how it happens, but as soon as you close the lid, it makes more rockets and when you reopen the crate, they're all back the way they were."

I lifted the lid. Two neat rows of rockets lay in the crate. I took one out and closed the lid. I opened it a few seconds later. Another rocket had replaced the one I took out.

"Amazing! But how am I gonna move it if it's infinitely heavy or something like that?"

"It's not, but you're not going to take it alone. In fact, you're not going to take it at all. I just want you to bring a regular crate of rockets in the second story of that building over there." The rebel pointed to a building across from the plaza.

I picked up the crate (it was much heavier than I thought!) and lugged it to the door of the building. I dropped the crate, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. Wow. It was definitely a hospital.

A few rebels lay on mattresses either screaming, groaning, or unconscious. I tried to ignore the sheer misery of the place and headed upstairs. I dropped the crate and ran out of the building as fast as I could.

"Hey, I'm gonna grab a group and head over to S31. Screw this unloading."

"Ha, will do. Go on ahead."

I left with Kel'agon to S29, another rebel-controlled base.

After powering through an ambush of metro cops, I came to the S29 barricade. Five rebels stood outside the barricade.

"Hey, guys? You might wanna move to the side so the gate doesn't crush you when it opens."

They silently moved aside. I opened the barricade. The entrance to S29 was much larger, stronger, and more dramatic. Two huge metal doors guarded the entrance. Two locks stood on opposite sides of the door, making it impossible for one person to open the doors. It didn't matter in this case. The rebels guarding the door unlocked it. The doors made a humming noise before they began to part.

The lobby of the station was immense. A large, well-lit room stood in front of me. A desk with two huge security consoles sat in one of the corners. Everything in S25 was thrice the size in S29. Larger doors, thicker doors, everything. To the right was a door with a red cross on it. To the right was a door that read "SUPPLIES". And straight ahead was a door with "LIVING QUARTERS, ROOF ACCESS" on it.

_(A/N I like to picture the lobby as the main room in the Half-Life 1 level "Questionable Ethics". It is a big, roomy area with a desk on the side.) _

"All right, Kel'agon. Wait here."

I walked across the lobby. I looked down to find I was standing inside the dot of the Combine logo. But inside the dot, a huge lambda had been spray painted.

I walked over to the security panels. Even the keys seemed bigger. I put myself on the PA system. "All right, everyone. Wake up if you haven't done so. I'm Barney, if you haven't already noticed. Today, I am gathering all of you to overtake S31 THACO. So come prepared in the lobby and I'll give you the briefing."

I knew it would take forever for everyone to get to the lobby, so I viewed maps of the city and decided on the route we would take to S31. It was actually pretty difficult, we had to pass through two Combine checkpoints. Otherwise, we would have to go through the surrounding apartments filled with God knows what, which would be more perilous and would probably take longer.

On the map, I saw a large building labeled Overwatch Nexus. Whatever that was.

The rebels began to arrive in the lobby. They lined up, wielding shotguns and SMGs. The lobby, as big as it was, was packed. I stood up on the desk and gave them a briefing.

"As I said earlier, our goal for today is to overtake S31, the largest station in the city. It'll take some doing, but we'll have to follow the roads through to the next precinct, take over two checkpoints, past a building called the Nexus, and through to S31. S31, I know is hard to believe, is about one and a half times the size of this base."

I could hear some uneasy murmuring throughout the crowd. "All right everyone. Where's the base commandant?" A muscular woman raised her hand.

"Very good. I, along with Kel'agon and the base commandant, will lead the group. Everyone ready?"

"YEAH!"

I smiled. "Then let's pull out!" I hopped off the desk and exited, the enormous group in tow.

--

As we made our way through the streets, I heard a humming noise, followed by a clicking. I didn't need to check what it was. It was a scanner. Before I knew what was happening, I heard gunfire and an explosion behind me.

"That scanner was strange." The commander said to me.

"How do you mean?" I asked her as I walked.

"It was different in color and it looked like it could transform into something else."

"Ah, well. Just one more thing in the Combine's arsenal."

I heard a noise. A headcrab missile had crashed in the middle of the crowd, crushing someone and sending five other people to the ground, dead.

"Crap!" The commander screamed.

A headcrab popped out. It was shot down immediately, as were the other five that popped out.

"Everyone! Spread out a bit more! That way, those... things will kill less people when they hit!" The commander yelled. She turned to me. "Barney, at this rate, we're gonna run out of people!"

"Relax. We have about 100 people behind us. What could go wrong?"

"Maybe we could have sent small groups. We would definitely attract less attention."

"You're right!" I stopped abruptly.

"What is the matter?" Kel'agon asked.

I turned around and addressed the group. "Everyone, we're trying a new approach. A little farther down the street is S24, which is controlled by rebels. We'll stop there and send groups of four every ten minutes. I will take a group of ten forward at first to clear out the checkpoints. Then, assuming everything goes well, I'll radio for another group to go forward. We might not even need all of you. Sounds good?"

Everyone nodded.

We took a short walk to S24, which was as small as far as stations go. It was a little smaller than S25 and a little less secure. The barricade was shorter and the door was just a normal door with a Combine lock over the doorknob. I started to open the door.

"Stop!" I heard someone yell from inside. "Who are you?"

"I'm Barney! And I'm here with the entire population of S29!" I opened the door completely. A rebel stood in the middle of the lobby, a shotgun pointed at the door.

"Oh, phew! I thought you were the Combine for a second. But S29? This place is tiny and S29 is huge!"

"They don't all need to be inside. They can wait inside the barricade but outside the entrance to the building."

"Fine. But what do you need them here for?"

I explained the plan to take over S31, and how if we traveled in small groups, we would attract less attention.

"Ah. Very good. I guess they can stay for a bit."

I went back outside the building and yelled to the rebels. "Okay, I'm going to take six people, actually, to come with me. So that'll be you and you and you and you and you and you." I pointed to six random people in the crowd. They came forward. "The rest of you, stay at S24 and wait for my signal!"

I led the six people out of the barricade and closed it behind me. Two medics and four normal rebels stood behind me, half with shotguns and half with SMGs.

"All right! Let's go!" We walked quickly further down the street. We didn't go unnoticed for long. Two scanners emerged over the buildings. They were the ones that the commander described. They were tan and seemed to be carrying something. They dropped the things they were carrying right in the middle of the street. I shot them both down.

We walked a bit closer to the things they had dropped. They were metal discs about the size of dinner plates. Three claws dug into the concrete, giving it a firm grip on the ground. As one of the rebels came closer, it suddenly lit up and made some kind of chirping noise.

"Don't get_ any _closer!" I commanded the rebel. He stepped back.

"So, I guess we should go around those things?" One of the rebels asked.

"Good idea. Go as far to the sides of the street as you can, as far away from those things!" I made my way to the side of the street, pressed myself against the wall of the buildings, and slid along the wall. The thing closest to me still lit up, but it didn't do anything after that.

I got past the things (I assumed they were mines of some sort) and waited for the other rebels to clear them. We proceeded.

"Ow!" One of the rebels exclaimed.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Bullet hit me." I looked around. I couldn't see anyone. Suddenly, one of the rebels screamed and crumpled to the ground. Someone had shot them in the back of the head.

"NOOOOO!" One of the rebels screamed. I remembered a few days ago, I had been shot repeatedly in the same situation. Then I remembered the woman in the black skintight leather.

"Everyone! Get inside a building! Now!" I ran to a door which was locked from the inside. I took a few steps back and kicked the door as hard as I could. The door splintered in the middle and went down. I ran into the building, reloaded my gun, and ran upstairs to the first floor. This building had been abandoned and each of the apartments had windows.

I pulled out my Deagle and looked out the window. I could see a figure across the street in one of the rooms on the other side of the street. I fired blindly at the area, most of my shots missing the assassin. It jumped out of the window and landed in a crouched position. One of the rebels hadn't taken cover and was firing his shotgun at the woman. One of the pellets hit her.

She was stunned for a moment. I fired my Deagle at her. It hit her in the leg. Another rebel came out of cover and shot her to death. I felt strange, taking part in the purposeful killing of the woman. But as long as she was trying to kill me, I couldn't care less.

I hopped out of the window. "Okay, let's keep going."

"But what about him?" The rebel pointed to the dead rebel lying in the street.

"Leave him behind. I'm not about to give him a ceremony and proper burial right now."

We kept moving. But again, we ran into problems. A barricade covered the street, and I didn't see a security console anywhere to open the barricade. I looked around. A window overlooked the top of the barricade on the third floor of a nearby building. If I got up there, I could hop out of the window, onto the top of the barricade, and jump onto the other side. So, I opened the door to the building which was locked by a Combine lock. We ran up a few flights of stairs until we got to the third floor. I ran into the room with the window I needed to find a mattress with a dead person on it. The body was rotting, and parts of the flesh had fallen away to reveal bones.

"Yeesh!" I exclaimed.

"Aw, gross!"

I went to the window. I was right. All I would have to do would be to hop out of the window, onto the top of the barricade, and hop off the barricade. I could even see a little button that would open the gate. I shot open the window and squeezed myself through the opening. I landed on the top of the barricade, when I quickly hopped onto the side I needed to be on. I ran to the button and pushed it, turning the light red. The gate groaned open.

Meanwhile, the other rebels made their way out of the window and onto my side. We pressed on.

We came to an intersection. A sentry tower jutted out of the roof of a building. A CP was stationed on it, but luckily he didn't see us. I pulled out my Deagle and shot him down after disabling his death sensor. Stealth was key. I knew that after this intersection, the precinct gate and checkpoint would be our next big obstacle. We crossed the intersection and followed the street. Around the bend was the checkpoint. I loaded my gun, took a deep breath, and turned the corner, ready for one hell of a fight.

End Part 1.

_Yay! Another installment. Hope y'all enjoyed it, and sorry about the long wait! Just schoolwork and crap like that gets in the way. No matter, this is uploaded and I am happy! And now that the Uruktu League has been deleted, I can concentrate a bit more on this one. Have a great (Choose one) morning/afternoon/evening/week/weekend!_


	19. Things Can Go Wrong, You Know

Part 2

_**Stuff to say before I begin: Check out the poll I put on my profile! And congrats to everyone on adding a 17**__**th**__** page to the HL archives. Happy Rosh Hashana!**_

The precinct gate blocked the street. Two sentry towers stuck out from two buildings. Each sentry tower had a turret. The gate itself was guarded by six soldiers, eight metro cops, and yet another kind of soldier. It was dressed entirely in white, with one red eye inside a white helmet. It held an AR2, the gun I had lost a few days ago. I wanted it.

But the guards saw us. They immediately opened fire. Taking the gate head on would be just plain stupid. "Hey! Get away from the gate!" I yelled to the five rebels that were following me. I took off the way we came.

"Turbulence at precinct 6 gate! Request aerial backup! Go, go, go!" One of the metrocops radioed for help. We were screwed.

I dove behind a dumpster and thought of a plan. The easiest approach would be to snipe the guards from some building. The only problem was that I didn't have a sniper rifle, and not even my Deagle was accurate enough.

Maybe if I could find an APC, I could fire a bunch of rockets and clear everyone out. But there weren't any APCs.

So, I would have to go through the buildings somehow. Calling for more people would be an absolute last resort. I got out of cover. Surprisingly, no one had followed us. The other rebels had ran inside a building, but they had come back out.

"So, what now?" They asked.

"We go along the rooftops for as long as we can and then ambush the gate from behind. But one of the metrocops called for aerial backup, so I think a helicopter should come soon. So just go across the rooftops for as long as possible. Let's go!"

I shot down a fire escape and climbed up. The roof was five stories above the ground and was pointed. This complicated things a bit, it was hard to just sprint across the roof. So, I carefully edged along the side. If I fell, I knew I would die. The other rebels were close behind me.

"Scanner!" One of the rebels yelled. He fired his SMG at the scanner, blowing it up.

"Did it get a picture?" I asked him.

"Yeah. Let's hurry!" He answered. But we didn't have time to hurry, as I heard a helicopter.

"Crap." I said. "Here comes the helicopter!"

It emerged from behind a row of buildings. I could hear it charging up to fire. It let out a barrage of bullets, killing two rebels and injuring a third. And it wasn't done yet.

I saw a small window into the attic of the building we were on. I dove right into the window. I heard the helicopter charging up again. It flew right in front of the window and emptied another barrage of bullets into the attic. I didn't have time to look what was in the attic, but I felt claws in my back.

I spun around. A zombie stood there, pulling its claws back for another strike. I ducked as the helicopter killed it.

While it was charging up another blast, I jumped back out of the attic and ran across another building. The last rebel had been killed. I saw his decapitated body on the street below. No time to do anything except run. I dove into another attic just as the helicopter began to fire again.

This time, I looked around the attic. Boxes and barrels and a dead headcrab were the only things here. But the barrels... they were_ explosive_! If the helicopter shot one and blew it up, the others would blow up and I would be blown to smithereens. The helicopter seemed to know about the explosive barrels.

I frantically looked for stairs or some way out of the attic. I knew the next three rooftops didn't have attic windows, so if I ran across that way, I would be shot before I could take cover. I saw a trapdoor a few feet away from me that was padlocked shut. I shot off the lock and crawled to the trapdoor, careful not to be in the helicopter's sight.

But then it shot a bullet through the window. Just one. But it was enough to ignite a barrel.

In a few more seconds, the attic would blow up. I threw open the trapdoor and jumped through the opening. I fell about six feet. I had dropped into a hallway.

I heard the barrel explode. The apartment shook a bit.

I took off down the hallway. I heard more barrels explode, the apartment shook harder. I would have believed I was in an earthquake. I flew down another set of stairs as the rest of the barrels blew. Plaster began to fall from the ceiling. I heard the entire building creak. More plaster rained from the ceiling. I kept running. I charged down another staircase and ran down the hall. The ceiling on this floor collapsed. Rebar fell onto my head. The floor beneath me gave way. I tumbled onto the next story down.

One more floor and I would be at street level. If the building collapsed on me I would die. I sprinted across the hallway and down the final set of stairs. The ceiling on this floor began to fall as well. I kicked down the door to the building and onto the street in the nick of time. The building crumbled to the ground in an enormous cloud of dust.

(A/N Sorry to bring up such a depressing subject, but I got the idea for the way the building fell from the collapse of the World Trade Center. An explosion near the top causes the whole thing to come down.)

Plaster clouded the area. I coughed and shut my eyes. When the plaster settled, I shook myself like a dog and looked around. The skeleton of the building still stood, but the rest was gone. There was no helicopter, as it had probably flown off thinking it had killed me.

Since I wasn't being pursued by a helicopter anymore, I calmly climbed to the top of another building and proceeded down the street.

--

As I turned a corner on the rooftop, I saw the precinct gate. I didn't want to just bypass it, I wanted it to be rebel-controlled. The two sentry towers had a very good view of the surrounding area. I would just go down one of the buildings and ambush the people from behind.

I wanted to radio for help, but it was still an absolute last resort. I needed to get to street level, so I climbed through a window into the attic of the building I was on.

The contents of this attic: Dust and cobwebs.

I made my way down the stairs. All of a sudden, I heard radio chatter.

"Sniper to gate, sniper to gate. I think I hear something. I'm gonna go check it out."

"Do that quickly, go ahead."

Sniper? The Combine had snipers? Perfect. Just what I needed now. I heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall. The sniper saw me and raised his rifle. I loaded a clip of bullets into his chest.

"Gate to sniper, what was that?" I examined the dead body. Other than being extremely bloody, it was no different from a normal Combine foot soldier.

Then, I picked up his sniper rifle. I turned it over in my hands. It was about three feet long. The scope was so powerful, I could put it above some lake water and see the bacteria.

A small switch on the scope was turned to the "off" position. I switched it on. A blue beam of light suddenly appeared, pointing in the direction the rifle was facing. A laser sight!

"Sweet." I said out loud.

"Gate to sniper! Please respond!"

I had to quiet that guy who was talking. And what better way to do so than with the rifle?

I went down the hallway to the room where the sniper came from. It was very dark, but I could make out a pink box with ammunition. The sole window in the room had a perfect view of the gate from behind. I figured that I would start with the guys in the sentry towers.

I raised the rifle. I turned the laser sight off, so as not to give my position away.

I looked through the scope. I could even make out the unit number on the metro cops' jacket. I steadied the rifle and fired.

A tracer bullet pierced the air, hitting metro cop right in the chest. He was sent flying off of the tower and did a flip or two before hitting the ground.

I shot the second guard down. By now, the gate was on full alert. All the guards started firing at the window. I simply ducked down. Now was the time to radio for backup.

I grabbed my radio. "This is Barney to S24. Send four guys to the gate A.S.A.P!"

I shot another guard as I waited for a response.

"S24 to Barney. We'll be sending them right away. Try and hold your position until help arrives. Godspeed."

I tried to fire again. The clip was empty. I tried to find a way to get the spent one out and the new one in, but to no avail.

"C'mon, get out already!" I shook the rifle. I yanked on the clip. It slid out in my hands. I quickly stuffed another ammo clip from the pink box into the barrel. It made a satisfying, "click!" as it was secured.

I killed another soldier. I heard more radio chatter from the radio of the dead sniper.

"Gate to sniper! What the hell is going on up there?"

I saw that guard who was talking into his radio at street level. I put a bullet through him.

I heard footsteps and more radio chatter behind me. I holstered my rifle and pulled out my SMG.

There were three metrocops, each with pistols. They opened fire on me. I was shot three times before I managed to shoot them all. One of the metro cops dropped a health vial. I poured it over my most critical wound, right in my chest.

"S24 to Barney, backup is almost there, Just hold out for one more minute!"

As if the situation wasn't bad enough, I heard propellers.

Another helicopter was flying overhead!

I returned to the sniper room and shot another guard. The two white Combine had run into the buildings a while before and were on the sentry towers.

I had to worry about the helicopter, though. It shot through the window of the apartment, but all I had to do was duck.

As it was recharging, I shot one of the white Combine.

Then, I saw something fly through the air from behind a building and hit a helicopter. It was an RPG rocket. Finally, finally, help had arrived. Four rebels came from behind a building, still shooting the helicopter. They got six shots in before the helicopter flew off.

"Barney, you still there? We killed everyone else except those guys in the towers."

I reloaded my rifle and shot down the remaining soldiers before they could harm the rebels.

"Whoa, Barney, is that a sniper rifle?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna take it along."

"So, we need you down here so we can keep going."

"Right. Be right there."

I holstered my rifle again and loaded my SMG. I also grabbed the box of sniper ammo and strapped it to my belt.

I climbed past the dead metrocops and down to street level. The four rebels greeted me. "What now?"

"I'm gonna radio for seven more rebels to hold the gate and control it. The four of you will come with me, but we have to wait until they arrive." That said, I radioed S24. "Barney to S24, I'm gonna need seven more people over here to hold the gate and stuff like that. I'll wait here until they arrive."

I heard the commander radio back. "Sure, but I'll be coming along in that group and join you when I get there. Kel'agon and the S24 commandant will be in charge of the rest of the people."

I walked up to a security console by the gate. I tried to find a way to open the gate, but a message appeared on the console. It read, "Clearance button must be pushed on sentry tower G-16."

I looked at the two sentry towers. One was G-15 and the other one was G-16. I guessed there was a button on the platform that would open the gate. I told a rebel to go up there and find the button.

He ran off inside the building. A minute or two later, he emerged on the platform six stories above the ground.

I yelled up to him. "DO YOU SEE THE BUTTON?"

"YEAH! IT'S SMALL AND RED!"

"FEEL FREE TO PUSH IT!"

I saw him push something on the platform.

The security console lit up and displayed a message. "Gate is opening. Stand clear."

The gate folded apart, revealing the side I had come from earlier.

I heard footsteps. The new group of rebels had arrived. There were now 14 people in the area, which was too large and it needed to split up soon.

"Okay, guys. Everyone except the commander and the four that were here before, stay at the gate and let other people come through. The rest of you, come with me. We have to pass this place called the Nexus and past another gate before getting to S31. Let's go!" I waited for the rebel to get down from the sentry tower, and then continued down the street.

--

I remembered the entrance of the Nexus was through a certain building. I proceeded past an unmanned gate, through a hallway in a building, past a courtyard, back into a building, and up the stairs to find a room with several windows and a control panel. The windows overlooked a big open area with the Nexus. There were force fields that prevented direct entry through to the front of the Nexus.

In fact, I wasn't so sure of how to open the huge gate that guarded the road past the Nexus. Luckily, there was a security console in the room. I logged on and found maps of the Nexus.

Apparently, there was a side entrance to the very right of the field. I saw the entrance, but it was guarded by another force field. According to the maps, that force field was plugged in, so all I would have to do would be to shoot the plug down. But to actually get there, we would have to leave this building, get to another building across the open space, then switch back around inside the building and across the space again, only switch back in that building and arrive at the Nexus. And I could bet anything that there was going to be some resistance in each of the little buildings.

I looked through the maps a bit further and realized there were three generators inside the Nexus. When all three were disabled, we would have to go to the rooftop of the building, connect a bridge between the Nexus and another building, cross that bridge, and make our way down.

"Man, this is gonna be hard! I could use some Gordon right now." I exclaimed. I quickly explained the plan to the group, opened the locked door out of the room, disabled a camera that would probably give our position away, and proceeded. We went down some stairs and out onto street level. A dropship flew overhead, carrying a Strider.

I saw the entrance to the first "switch back" building across the way. It all seemed to easy.

I started walking across the open space. Suddenly, I heard a noise.

"LOOK OUT!" I spun around. A white beam of something was being shot from the rooftop of the Nexus, reflected back down by something, and hitting the ground. Around the white beam were blue sparks. The circle of blue sparks slowly got bigger. Then, it seemed to explode. I was shot back onto the ground. I felt a searing pain in my leg. I looked at my left leg and realized half of it was gone. The bottom part was lying several feet away in a pool of blood.

I screamed. Another beam of white light was fired. The world began to fade away.

"BARNEY! NOOOO!" I heard the commander yell. I felt someone tugging at my arms and dragging me away.

"Commander to S24, Barney has been seriously hurt! Send medics here A.S.A.P! Crap, crap!"

I lost consciousness, absolutely sure I was about to die.

End Barney's Life.

NO! Just kidding. Maybe I'm not. Dunno.

End Day 17


	20. On a Depressing Note

**Day 21**

**(The end of Barney Begins is soon! But don't think that's the end of Barney! I will follow him through Episode 1, that might take three chapters or so. And I will be writing another story to follow him through Episode 2, conceived entirely from my imagination. But I am also working on my other series, The Marvelous Misadventures of a Handyman. Check it out if you haven't done so already! Also note that today, Day 21, will require 3 (maybe 4) parts. And check out the poll on my profile, if you haven't voted already! And, according to the chapter name, this installment will be depressing, with a character death.**

**Now, onwards!)**

As soon as I woke up, I felt a stabbing pain in my leg. A few seconds later, I remembered the Nexus and the fact that half my leg had been torn off. That would explain the pain. But why was I not dead?

"Barney? Barney! You're alive! I don't believe it!" I heard someone running to me. I couldn't tell where I was, but I was pretty sure I wasn't in the lab. I only saw the ceiling, as I was lying on a mattress, on my back.

I saw the S29 commander looking over me. She had a grin large enough to cover her face, had it been an inch larger.

"Thank god! I guess Kel'agon worked his magic on you."

"Wait... what?" I asked her.

"After you blacked out, one of the rebels grabbed your leg while I took you back inside a building. One of our medics managed to cauterize your leg so you wouldn't die. When Kel'agon came, he carried you all the way to the nearest rebel hospital and attached your leg back to the rest of your body. You've been unconscious for four straight days. One more day, you would have been declared dead and vaporized. "

"What's cauterize?" I asked.

"Screw that, Barney! You're alive! Dr. Kleiner was worried sick!"

"What's cauterize, damn it! If it was done on me, don't you think I should know?"

The commander sighed. "Your leg was burned to close the wound."

"What the-"

"Hey, you're not in any pain now, right? Then you shouldn't care what happened to you four days ago!"

"I'm in extreme pain!"

"Are you? Oh, sorry. I'll get a medkit over here."

She yelled for one of the medics running to other injured people for a medkit. It was tossed to her. She caught it and opened it up.

"Barney, I'm gonna give you a shot of morphine for now, because your pain isn't a symptom of something fatal. You're just sore after Kel'agon reattached your leg." She pulled out a needle and gently gave me the shot. The pain was numbed almost immediately.

"So, what happened to all the guys waiting at S24?"

"As soon as I called Kel'agon to the Nexus, I told everyone else to head back to S29."

"What now?"

"It's up to you, but I really think you should go tell Dr. Kleiner that you're alive."

"Good idea, I guess. You can go back to S29."

"You can walk okay?"

"Yeah. See?" I stood up and hopped on my left leg.

"Well, don't push your luck."

"Whatever." I grabbed an SMG and made sure it was loaded.

With that, I left the hospital. It took me a few moments to realize where I was, but I realized that the hospital was on the route I had taken to S31.

I made my way down the streets, marveling over my miracle. How many times had I stared death down? As far as I could remember, it was three times. Once when an APC was about to pancake me, once receiving the shipment of rockets and rocket launchers, and once now. And I realized that I didn't remember recovering. I just woke up somewhere, like Dr. Kleiner's lab or a hospital. I could understand the incident at the Nexus, my blood loss was probably enough for me to pass out.

But what about the shipment of rockets and the APC ambush? I was in no huge pain before it happened, but I still woke up in Dr. Kleiner's lab. Weird.

--

I was crossing the street to eventually get to the fire escape entrance, but I heard a sound like a loud zipper. I then heard gunshots.

I turned around. Two soldiers were rappelling down a building while shooting at me. I killed one while he was still attached to his rope, but the other one got to the ground and emptied half of his clip in my general direction. I ran behind a tree and shot the soldier.

He had shot me five times, according to my fresh gunshot holes.

Even now, after being shot at for essentially three whole weeks, I never got used to the pain.

Two rebels happened to pass by, being pursued by a few metrocops. I shot one of them, the two rebels took care of the rest.

"Hey!" I yelled to them. "Got any medkits?"

"I have a health vial!" One of the rebels yelled. He unclipped it from his belt and threw it to me. I caught it and poured it over my vest. The wounds closed.

I thanked the rebels and continued.

After a short walk, I came to a gate. I unlocked it, wondering why they had put up a gate. I looked behind me. There was the Citadel wall, ready to crush Fremenik street and everything on it. The doc had to get out of his lab by the end of today.

I made my way to the lab, up the fire escape.

When I came into the lab, Dr. Kleiner was sleeping on a bed crate. Kel'agon was also in the lab, sleeping the day away. What were they doing? Shouldn't they be working? Especially Kel'agon, he needed to get to a hospital and help out.

I tapped the sleeping doc on the shoulder. He shot up. "Who is th- Barney! I don't believe it! He got up from his crate. "I was positive you wouldn't be waking up again! This is amazing!" He was dumbfounded.

"Yeah, I know it is."

"Well, I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am! And did you know, I found Lamarr in the teleport room yesterday! I thought that she had gone forever when Gordon was teleported away!"

"Where is the little bastard?"

"Lamarr is not a- a-"

"Bastard? Oh, yes it is! Where is it? I'm gonna blast its little brain to bits!"

"Barney! Stop it!"

"Sorry, doc. But I hate that thing. And sorry to worry you again, but the Citadel wall is just about fifty yards away from this building."

"The Citadel wall has reached the lab already? Oh, dear." The doc walked over to the security panel with all of the closed circuit televisions. He looked at one of the screens. "You're right! Oh dear, oh dear. What will I do?"

"By the end of today, you need to find a new place to set up shop. You should go to S29, I think they have a nice place to set up."

"But what about all of my work? I have been in City 17 for years now, and not one day has passed when I did not accomplish something! Moving to a new place would mean throwing all of it away!"

"Then feel free for everything to be crushed by the Citadel wall."

The Citadel wall.

The Citadel!

I had completely forgotten about the entrance I had found through the pipe!

"Doc, I think I can stop the Citadel wall from advancing."

"How on earth do you plan to do that? They are controlled by a single control panel at the heart of the Citadel!"

"Get inside the Citadel."

"The Citadel? It is the most closely guarded thing in the world!"

"Oh, really? Then the other things in the world must not be guarded at all."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean that I found a way in a few days ago. Through an old pipe from a storage room in S25."

"Really! But you don't know what is inside the Citadel! You could be discovered and killed! Do you expect the Combine's headquarters on Earth to be easy to infiltrate? Barney, you have no idea of the sheer magnitude of the situation! Do not put yourself in danger!"

"Then move out of the lab and start up again in S29." The doc was speechless. "It's either I am put in danger or you lose, basically, your life's work."

"Well, the work I have been doing is crucial to the survival of the human race. You are just one human, so I have no choice but to say go ahead."

"Thanks, doc."

"Oh, and Barney? The Vortigaunts have been working on a new bulletproof vest for you. I was actually going to throw it away the second I woke up from my sleep. But, I now know you are alive, so here it is!" The doc walked over to a crate and lifted the top. The vest looked exactly like my old one.

"Gee, thanks a bunch, doc."

After slipping it on, I woke Kel'agon. He blinked a few times upon seeing me. "The Calhoun has survived!" He mumbled something in his vortigaunt language while looking up at the ceiling. "What do you wish to do?"

"I ultimately want to get inside the Citadel, but I want to have a general idea of security and stuff like that. I think there's a special archive in S31 with maps of the Citadel. So, we want to get to S31. And this time, I hope to not be injured by the beam at the Nexus."

"Why do you wish to get inside the Citadel?"

"Because the Citadel wall has reached this street and will crush the entire area within the week."

"Alas, there is one more reason you must go to the Citadel."

"What's that?"

"The Eli Vance has been captured, and is a prisoner there. He is in great need."

"Eli- he is a prisoner at the Citadel?" Dr. Kleiner was shocked.

"Yes. One of my kin had discovered him."

"That's it. I'm gonna go get him back." I was furious. The Combine had taken Eli as a prisoner, in hopes of learning all about the technology he and Dr. Kleiner had developed.

"Good luck, Barney. But I must show you one more thing before you leave. Three days ago, Alyx's mechanical pet dog arrived here at the lab. I think Alyx would have wanted him to come help you."

He unlocked the sliding metal garage door. There DOG was, in the flesh. (Or metal.) He was also "sleeping", meaning he was lying in a heap on the ground.

"DOG, wake up!" I yelled. His sole eye lit up. He saw me and stood up. If he had a tongue, he would probably lick me, but he just hopped up and down cheerfully, making small "VOOT!" noises.

"Glad to see ya, buddy. But listen, I need your help. It's serious." DOG understood and calmed down. He cocked his head to one side and listened. "Eli is a prisoner at the Citadel. I want to go there and rescue him, I found a secret entrance in one of the old CP stations. But I want to understand what's inside the Citadel, so I want to get to a special place where they have maps of the Citadel. Then, I'll get lots of people and enter the Citadel and rescue Eli. Can you help us?"

DOG nodded.

"Okay, let's go!"

--

When I had been unconscious, Kel'agon had helped to remove the door to the mysterious elevator by the entrance to the lab. Turned out that there was no elevator, it was just the shaft. On the plus side, it did lead right down to street level.

I hopped down the small shaft, followed by Kel'agon and DOG. We were in the kind of area where trucks would unload their contents in the back of stores. We walked out of the area and onto the street. First stop: S29 to get rebels for help.

--

A lot had changed during the four days I had been unconscious. More buildings and former offices were either in smoldering ruins or with small fires.

The air smelled even more smoky than the last second of the last time I had been conscious. I wondered what else had changed.

DOG was happily jogging alongside Kel'agon and I.

--

Suddenly, I heard soldiers rappelling down a building. Even before Kel'agon or I could turn around and take care of them (there were three), DOG had picked up a dumpster and thrown it at one of the soldiers, obviously killing him. I shot the other one and Kel'agon electrocuted the third.

Lying at the base of the building was a smushed soldier, a shot up soldier, and one that was slightly twitching from the current in his body. (Also dead.) We were becoming quite the trio.

But celebration didn't last long.

--

Out from one of the buildings came a white soldier with an AR2. I wanted it badly.

To my horror, he fired some kind of large bubble from his gun. It bounced off a building behind us, narrowly missed me, bounced off of an old car, hit Kel'agon, and exploded.

Kel'agon went flying across the street. He slammed against a wall and laid still. DOG ran to the old car and picked it up over his head, ready to throw it.

The soldier saw it coming. He dashed away as the car flew down the street, not making any contact with anything except the ground. DOG let out an electronic roar of frustration.

The soldier shot another bubble at DOG. It simply bounced right off of him and hit the soldier. It vaporized him, but unfortunately, it vaporized the soldier's AR2.

The only thing on my mind at that moment was Kel'agon. I ran across the street. If he was human, I would check for a pulse, but I had no idea of Vortigaunts even had a heart, let alone a pulse.

I bent over him. "Kel'agon! Are you still with us? Kel'agon! Please answer me! Please! You can't be dead! No!" I slammed the ground in frustration.

DOG simply started clawing apart a patch of dirt by a tree. Wiping a tear from my cheek, I asked him what he was doing.

He picked Kel'agon up gently and laid him in the hole. He covered him with the dirt he had dug out. He then looked at me, almost expectantly.

"Gee, DOG. I'm not good at prayer, if that's what you m-m-mean." I started sobbing uncontrollably. "Dear Lord, if-if you're up there and you care about this V-Vortigaunt, then please, please let him be happy, wherever he goes."

DOG seemed to say, "Amen." I cried.

**End Part 1, Day 21**

_**Quite a depressing chapter, as stated earlier. But I was astonished to find that this had already reached five pages on Open Office. I like to limit myself to 5-6 pages on a word processor before either ending the day or ending the part. If I continued past this point, It would reach farther than that. Peace out!  
**_


	21. An Addition to the Combine Arsenal

Part 2, Day 21

DOG tapped me on the shoulder lightly. "You're right, we should probably get moving." I wiped tears from my eyes and kept walking down the streets. At Black Mesa, I did the opposite of what I had just done with the death of a Vortigaunt. I would cheer and kick them across the ground.

As I was turning onto another street, I saw a human wall of soldiers guarding the rest of the street. They opened fire as soon as they saw me. I was pretty sure DOG wasn't completely invincible to bullets, so I wouldn't just send him out there.

Seeing as I had my vest, I turned to DOG. "Okay, buddy. You go out there and do your worst. I'll be shooting from here. Ready?" DOG nodded. "Get out there!"

DOG turned the corner. I heard rounds of gunfire and some large metal object creaking. I turned the corner and almost burst out laughing. DOG had hopped onto the top of a streetlight and was using his weight to bend it. He bent it so that it was parallel to the ground. He then ripped it right out of the ground. With one massive swing, he killed eight soldiers. He threw the streetlight at two of the soldiers, knocking them to the ground.

I heard the all-too-familiar sound of an APC roaring to the scene. I dove out of its way as it tried to run DOG over. DOG picked up the entire thing and flipped it over his head. It hit the third story of an apartment. Thanks to the distraction, I shot three soldiers. Now, there were only two left. They unclipped grenades from heir belts and threw them at DOG, seeing that he was the larger threat.

DOG kicked them away and I shot one of the soldiers. The exploding grenades killed the last one.

"Man, that was awesome!" I yelled to DOG. I would have believed that ninety percent of my sweat was made of pure adrenaline. "But we really have to get going."

DOG understood. He walked right up to me and waited for my next move with anticipation.

--

We proceeded down the destroyed streets until we came to the precinct gate, now rebel controlled.

As soon as the rebels saw DOG, they raised their guns in question.

I chuckled. "Guys! He's on our side!"

They were still suspicious, but they lowered their guns. "What the hell is it?" One of the rebels asked.

"He was Alyx's mechanical pet. Now he's helping me out." I patted DOG on the head. "Anyway, how 'bout letting me through?"

"Right." One of the rebels hopped off of the small catwalk on the gate. I heard the chirping of a security console, and I heard the rebel yell.

"Hey! Let these people through! I already did the stuff on the panel!" He exclaimed to a rebel on the sentry tower with the button. I saw him push it. The gate creaked open.

"Hey, thanks a bunch. We gotta go, though." I led DOG past the gate and onwards.

--

We walked through several rotting, damp buildings and came out onto another street. This one had the Citadel wall right alongside it as well. An unfortunate rebel had been crushed by it, and was lying on the ground, stained with blood. Suddenly, the wall lifted up and slammed down, shaking the entire area.

"C'mon, DOG. We gotta get going." As we walked down the quiet street, I saw something move in a window. I fired into that window. Since the bullets from my SMG spread so much, none of them did anything effective.

In response the thing in the window fired a bullet at me. It hit me in my left shoulder. The force of the bullet took me by surprise. I flew backwards. The gunshot had torn my vest.

"DOG, kill that sniper in the window!"

DOG had already ran to find a throwable object to take care of the sniper. Seconds later, he emerged out of a cafe with an old cash register.

He threw it into the window. I heard a scream and then, silence.

"Geez, DOG! You're quite the horror!"

DOG hopped up and down.

--

As we were passing by an apartment, a zombie came crashing down out of a third story window. I reacted quickly, shooting it while it was still in the air. Turned out it was already dead.

_That was random!_ I thought. A few moments later, a burly medic hopped out of the second story window. He landed gracefully and approached us. But _he didn't have a weapon!_

"Hey, guys. I was thinkin' that I'd join ya. Y'know, just for kicks. I wanna see how it's like fightin wid somebody."

"You mean you fight alone?"

"Of course. I fly solo. Harder to get shot if you go around by yourself. O' course, I never tried fightin with others. By the way, what the hell is that thing?"

DOG seemed to get angry. He snatched the medic and lifted him up over his head.

"DOG! What're you doing? Put him down!" I yelled. The medic was just screaming bloody murder.

DOG dropped the man and glared at him.

"You call it a dog?" The medic asked.

"It's a long story. But he's on our side, so don't piss him off."

The medic just stared at DOG in awe.

"Were you the one who knocked the zombie out of the window?" I asked him.

"I dunno. Ask my fist!" The medic showed me the back of his hand. It was yellow with headcrab blood. "Yeah, I did it! Without a gun, too."

"I see. So, what's your name?"

"I dunno." The man shrugged as if it was no big deal. I didn't really want to ask why he didn't know his name. He would probably give me some sob story.

I told him our objectives and we proceeded to S29.

--

Upon entering, I saw two dead bodies on the floor. The walls had bullet holes in various spots. A headcrab capsule had smashed right into the ground. It was still hot, and steam was floating off of it.

"What the hell went on here?" I asked. It was a stupid question. I knew perfectly well what happened.

I got on the intercom to the station.

"This is Barney. Anyone who is still here, please come out to the main-"

I was cut short by a "BOOM!"

One of the doors were blown open. Three rebels emerged from the blinding mess of smoke and dust. They were firing at something else that wasn't visible in the smoke. I heard muffled screams and groans.

I had my money on the fact that the things in the dust were zombies. The first zombies began to come out of the smoke. But it was a zombie assortment. There was even a zombie I had never seen before. All of its skin was missing, and damp muscle hung off of the bones. It was a fast one, as it dashed across the room and leaped onto DOG. He flailed his claws at the metal body, only to be shot by a rebel.

DOG, as usual, was looking for a heavy object to throw. He set his mind on pulling the headcrab capsule out of the ground. Meanwhile, the nameless medic had kicked a zombie across the head, sending it to the ground.

I set my sights on a venomous zombie sneaking behind one of the rebels. I shot an entire clip into his body. The zombie fell, but two of its "passengers" detached themselves. One leaped onto the head of one of the rebels. I shot it off, but, similar to my first traumatizing encounter in City 17 with a horde of zombies, the damage had already been done. And this time, there was no Vortigaunt to revive him. The man was dead.

The second headcrab had been picked up by the nameless medic and slammed against another zombie. The headcrab was badly injured, and it fell to the ground, shrieking.

As for the zombie, it was knocked down as well. While it was on the ground, the medic kicked it until the headcrab had completely dislodged from the zombie.

DOG finally pulled the headcrab capsule over his head. He threw it at a large group of zombies that had taken an interest on ripping the nameless medic to shreds. They were all knocked over like bowling pins when DOG tossed the capsule.

"Barney, toss me a gun!" The medic yelled. He was being pushed against a wall by a zombie, who was applying a deathly choke hold. I unholstered my Deagle and threw it to him. He almost missed it, but he caught it at the last second. He fired a bullet into the zombie's headcrab. The headcrab went flying off as the zombie crumpled to the ground.

I looked around. There were no more zombies, as far as I knew.

"Oh, God! I had no idea there were so many!" I exclaimed to one of the rebels.

"Yeah. There were two headcrab rockets that just smashed into the mess hall kitchen, the people cooking there were killed immediately. And then a few rocket hit the living quarters, but most of the headcrabs were killed before they zombified anyone. So the only zombies that weren't killed came here. I'm sure there are more around the base."

"So where is everyone? This place had like one hundred people when I came last."

"Ten were killed when they went to raid a smaller Combine controlled base. And those ten were the only ones sent there. Three cooks, all dead. That one over there, dead." The rebel pointed the other poisoned rebel and continued. "I think thirteen people were killed because of the headcrab capsules when they crashed. All these guys on the floor count as dead. I count 8 of them. And five were killed by being zombies in the living quarters, then shot. So, that's a total of... 40 people. The other 60 ran away."

"To where?"

"To other bases."

"DAMN! I came here to gather a whole bunch of people to go to the Nexus."

The rebel raised an eyebrow. "The Nexus? Why do you want to get there?"

I really didn't feel like explaining again, but I had no other choice. I told him about the Citadel wall by the doc's lab, Eli being a prisoner at the Citadel, and S31.

"So you think that S31 has maps of the Citadel? On paper?" The rebel scoffed. "Yeah, right."

"Why?"

"The Combine are electronic maniacs. They don't have one little slip of paper that has anything important on it. Everything important is on a computer. Where did you learn that S31 has Citadel maps, anyway?"

"While I was pretending to be a CP, I overheard a soldier telling the base commandant that the maps were in 31S."

"Not S31?"

"What else could it be?"

"Barney, all important documents are archived under certain codes in the Combine's system. I don't find it hard to believe that Citadel maps have a code as well. Maybe 31S?"

He was right. "Uh, well, uh-" I was so embarrassed! "So, I guess we'll have a look at the document archives?"

I walked over to the security panel in S29's lobby. I logged on and navigated to the archives page. I was told to enter a document code.

I typed "31S" into the text box. As soon as I pressed, "enter", I was given a list of everything archived under that name. DOG looked curiously over my shoulder as I searched the list. Apparently, there were 61 files under that code. I scrolled through useless-sounding things like, "Citadel Prisoner Roster A-M" and "Citadel Cleaning Schedule". But one title seemed to stand out.

"Kitten's Claw" was the name of the file. I chuckled. I pictured an image in my head of Breen getting clawed to shreds by adorable kittens.

"What's so funny?" The rebel asked.

"Check out this file name." I pointed to the title. I clicked on it. It led me to another list with 149 choices. They were something like, "Floor map, Sublevel 5."

"Now we're cooking!" I yelled.

_(A/N I was THIS CLOSE to saying, "Now we're cooking with Crisco!" Because Kiefer I. sent me a PM with that expression and I have been aching to use it. Proceed!)_

Since it was no use to look at the maps now, as I certainly couldn't cram that much information into my head at once, I closed the windows and asked, "What now?"

"Well, I think it'd be wise to set up a staging area for attacking the Citadel, since you seem to be wanting to do that. Usually, that'd be a wise thing to do."

"What's a staging area?" The nameless medic asked. He had been quiet for a while now.

"A staging area is a designated place where vehicles, supplies, and reinforcements come are placed during an attack on somewhere. Actually, staging areas are usually used for construction, but it'd be just as helpful now."

"But there is only one more large rebel base left! S18 is on the way, way other side of the sector." I told the rebel. "There's a gate that we need to open to move people through, right by the Nexus. If we want to move people from S18 to the staging area, we need to open that gate."

"Looks like you have your plan!" The rebel exclaimed. "But where do you want your staging area?"

I was waiting for that question. "I think it should be by S25, since that's where the secret entrance is. We could access maps of the Citadel from the security console there, someone could sit there and guide everyone through the Citadel. I think we could put some tracking device on some-" I was cut off by the "Melee Medic"

"Look, you can talk 'bout this stuff later. Now, we gotta open that gate!"

DOG "vooted" in agreement.

--

As soon as I stepped outside the station, DOG seemed to get tense.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

DOG stood on two feet and roared mechanically. He seemed to be looking down the street.

"DOG! Calm down!" I tried to calm him down, but he just kept roaring down the street. Suddenly, the ground began to tremble. I was knocked off of my feet. I really did not know what was happening.

--

I heard the street tearing apart. I was afraid to look, but I couldn't help it. I stared down the street. But I couldn't believe my eyes.

A huge robot had drilled itself out of the ground. It roared mechanically. It was about as tall as a four story building. It had eight long legs, bent at the middle. It resembled an enormous spider. The "abdomen" was a large metal pod with an enormous drill at the end.

The Melee Medic screamed and started running the opposite direction. The "Spider" saw him and started running for him. The spider took up the entire street. It was much faster than I thought. It ran at about 35 miles an hour, so it easily caught up to the medic and skewered him on one of its pointy legs.

I felt sick. The spider had just impaled a person right through their chest.

The spider turned around. Its drill began to spin as it tucked its legs right into the pod and flew at me. I shut my eyes and screamed.

End Part 2


	22. Comrade Rendezvous

Part 3, Day 21

From now on, I will do my best to reply to ALL reviews. On any story.

It was hard to believe I was about to die. I was positive I would die in other scenarios. Then, _something_ happened, and I was fine. But it was just too unbelievable to think that I wouldn't die this time. I knew I was about to be drilled right through.

I heard DOG roaring. Louder than anything I had ever heard before. And then, I heard a huge crash. I opened my eyes and saw that DOG had leaped onto the robot in midair. His timing couldn't have been more precise. Because this new enemy was so huge and heavy, DOG's tackle only moved it aside of me by a few feet. The drilling robot crashed into a building. Its drill got stuck in it.

I didn't have time to thank him. I took off down the street, firing at the robot. DOG had jumped on top of the robot's pod and began tearing the hull away.

"HEY! COME ON!" I yelled to the other rebel to come with me and leave the killing to DOG. However, the rebel grabbed a grenade from his belt. He unclipped it and threw it into the small hole that DOG had dug in the robot's pod.

"DOG! Get away from there!" I yelled. DOG hopped off of the robot as the grenade exploded. It sent blood everywhere. I guess the robot wasn't really a robot, just some kind of cyborg-like thing.

DOG ran over to where I was standing, the rebel right behind him.

"DOG had it covered! Why did you throw that grenade?"

"I... well... I don't know! Geez, Barney! Relax!"

"HOW CAN I RELAX WHEN I WAS ALMOST KILLED?!"

The rebel shrugged and gave me a "Please-don't-kill-me" look.

I grumbled and proceeded onto the Nexus.

--

As we were walking, DOG saw a pigeon take flight off of one of the rooftops. He took off after it, by climbing to the rooftop of the building and chasing after it.

"DOG! Come back here! Come back here now!" I yelled after him. DOG didn't listen. He got farther and farther away as I desperately tried to get him back. But he soon disappeared behind a building. It was no use chasing after him, he was about a million times faster than I.

"Damn it!" The rebel kicked at the ground in fury. "We needed him!"

"We're gonna have to get to the Nexus ourselves. C'mon. Haste makes waste," I said, quoting something my father always repeated.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Just shut up and walk."

--

We approached a barricade by the Citadel wall. I saw a control panel to open it, but decided to radio Dr. Kleiner to find out how his packing up of his lab was coming along. I punched some buttons and got into Dr. Kleiner's lab radio.

I asked, "Doc, are you there? Come in, doc, are you there?"

The screen filled up with the image of Dr. Kleiner's lab. There were two people standing behind him, and they looked _exactly_ like Alyx and Gordon. My eyes must have been playing tricks on me, I brushed the fact away and waited for Dr. Kleiner to answer.

"Yes, Barney, and I'm no longer alone!" I looked closer at the two figures behind him. I couldn't believe my eyes. They _were_ Alyx and Gordon!" "Alyx and Gordon have just arrived."

"Well man, that's good news. I almost gave you guys up for lost. We're planning to set up a staging area for attackin' the Citadel." I didn't want to tell Alyx and Gordon that I had been 100 percent positive they were dead!

Alyx approached the screen. "Gordon and DOG can head your way. I want to get Dr. Kleiner somewhere safer. Then I'll meet up with you."

"I'll take all the help I can get!" I answered. At that point, I saw an all-too-familiar headcrab capsule hurtling towards the ground, aimed right for the barricade. The rebel was leaning against it, waiting for me to finish up the conversation. "Ah, crap! INCOMING!" I yelled to the rebel. He dove out of the way as the capsule crashed into the barricade. I fell to the ground, due to the impact.

I returned to the screen to end the conversation and fight the headcrabs. "Go on, get going!" I yelled right before shutting off the radio.

I then turned to face the headcrabs. The capsule had just opened, and there were already two headcrabs headed towards me. One leaped for me while the rebel shot the other. It landed on me, but my practice with wrestling Lamarr off of my head paid well. I threw the headcrab to the ground and stomped on it as hard as I could. It was still alive, but unable to headhump. I then shot it to pieces.

"Little bastards!" I laughed as I shot the rest that emerged from the capsule. The rebel didn't seem too used to headcrabs, in a way that he could laugh while shooting them.

Thankfully, the capsule had destroyed the barricade. The problem was, the capsule was super hot from flying through the air. The only way past the barricade was climbing over the capsule, which would cause quite a bit of pain.

"Man, I wish DOG were here. He could just rip this out of the ground." The rebel said, after spitting on the capsule and watching his spit sizzle, and eventually dry out.

"That's not gonna do us any good. How are we going to do this?" I stared at the barricade. I guessed that the only choice was to go around the barricade through the buildings. The only building with an entrance was a cafe. I shot the glass and stepped right through the window. I could still smell a teeny bit of coffee.

"Where should we go?" The rebel asked.

I had a perfect idea of where to go. My uncle owned a bakery that was attached to an apartment building, and sometimes I came there after school do my homework in the back room, that stored all the coffee cups and coffee beans and cleaning agents. But there was a door out of that back room, which led into the lobby of the apartment building. So, I looked for some kind of doorway into a storage room. The only things I saw were a few boards nailed to the wall. I whacked one of the boards with the butt of my gun.

The board cracked in two. I guess it was already rotten. I kicked the rest of the boards down and entered a dark room. The smell almost knocked me out. All too soon, I heard some scuttling. The rebel came into the room with a flashlight that he had clipped to his belt. He shone it around. As he illuminated one wall, I saw a huge blood stain that had dried. At the base of the bloodstain was a previously live zombie. One of its guts had fallen out through the huge hole in his belly.

"What in the name-" The rebel did not finish. A headcrab jumped out of the darkness and latched onto his head. I had no choice. By now, the headcrab was fully planted and had started to infect the rebel. So, I opened fire on the headcrab. It flew off and smacked against the wall. The rebel walked toward me for a few more seconds before toppling to the ground, his flashlight shattering and turning off, making the room almost completely dark. I was speechless. Only in the pipe under S25 and the inverted cat scene had I been so frightened.

I looked around for another door frantically, in case there were any more surprises. As a last resort, I started kicking around blindly and swinging my gun everywhere. Finally, my foot connected with a board. It fell away and light shone into the room from the lobby. I stumbled out of the room, and only then realized my vest was stained with blood.

"God damn it." I said. "GOD DAMN IT!" I kicked at the floor. I ran across the room and whacked the wall with my gun. I then started in on my head. This was just too much for me. I raised my gun at myself and was about to pull the trigger when a tiny, trivial thought crossed my mind. _Barney, if you commit suicide, you are dooming the human race. Why are you being stupid like this?_"

I lowered the gun and took a deep breath. "_Much better, Barney. Besides, you'll feel better when you kick some Combine ass._"

I opened the door out of the lobby. I was on the other side of the barricade, as planned. I then set out for the Nexus.

--

As I came to another barricade, I heard a few strange noises, probably alien. But I had never heard that sound come from any alien, so I decided I would go to the rooftop of a nearby building and see what I was getting into. I saw the perfect building. It had been reduced to almost nothing, it's frame and most of the floors and ceiling still intact. The walls had been taken out completely, though. And a huge pile of debris led up to the second floor, which had stairs to the third floor, where I could see over the barricade.

I climbed up the debris and onto the second floor. There were a few dead zombies lying around, a small, tame fire was burning on a piece of furniture. I made my way to the third floor of the building. The third floor basically had no walls or ceiling. There was a file cabinet lying around, but nothing else. I walked to the other end of the floor, and saw that the other side of the barricade was clear. Nothing there.

"God damn it." I said, and began walking back to the stairs. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a bullet flew by. It was a sniper bullet, I could tell. Then, I saw the rifle's blue laser pointing at my chest. I dove out of the way as the bullet flew by me. The stairs were too far away, and I would surely be killed by the time I got there.

However, I did see a fragment of a wall on the other side of the floor. If I could get there in time, I would be covered from sniper fire. As I ran to the wall fragment, _another_ sniper tried to fire at me from a different window. Great. So now, there were two snipers out to kill me. Thankfully, the wall was at an angle, so that neither of snipers could hit me. But I was trapped here. If I jumped off the building, I would die. Even my bulletproof vest wasn't entirely bulletproof, I would die if I came out of cover. Had these snipers been following me? I had plenty of time to think about, since I was trapped.

I decided to yell for help. "ANYONE HERE? HELP ME!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. It was a good thing these snipers didn't have grenades, as I would surely be screwed.

Every time I yelled, both snipers shot at my cover immediately, trying to shut me up. I heard radio chatter, something like, "Request backup, Anticitizen Three is present behind cover, request backup at Nexus outskirt."

I heard footsteps on the floor below me. I saw a rebel walking right towards a hole in the ceiling where he could communicate with me.

"Stop! Don't go-" I was too late in my warning. One of the snipers shot the rebel. He dropped dead on the spot, and I heard altered laughter from the snipers.

"HEEEELP!" I yelled again. More sniper fire, still no backup on my end. Things only got worse. Two strange-looking scanners were carrying those hopper mines I had seen earlier. I shot the hopper mines out of their grasps, so now, the scanners were just scanners. But what I didn't know was that they had little turrets. Both started to shoot me. I was helpless. The bullets, as weak as they were, began to tear apart my vest. I tried to shoot at them, but my SMG was empty. I reached for another clip of ammo from my belt, and found that to be empty as well. My last hope was my Deagle.

I yanked it out of my belt. I fired at one of the scanners, effectively blowing it up. The explosion sent two pieces of shrapnel into my upper leg. I knew for a fact that one of my arteries was right where the shrapnel hit. Fortunately, the vest stopped the shrapnel from doing any damage. I shot the other scanner as well, this time turning my face away as I fired.

I tried to fire into the sniper's window, but my gun made a clicking sound. It was out of ammo as well! I slid the magazine out and tossed it away. I reached for another magazine, but I couldn't find any!

"CRAP!" It was a horrible feeling, knowing that I couldn't defend myself. And to make matters worse, I heard the sound of Combine soldiers approaching. Not good.

--

A soldier came out of the stairs from the second floor. He carried an AR2, which I had wanted, nay, _needed_ in City 17 since I had lost my other one. I found one last object on my person. My scrawny little flare gun. I hardly ever used it, because if I fired it, it would attract more Combine! But I could use it now, only if I didn't fire it into the air. Besides, it was a pleasure of mine to see Combine soldiers die as painfully as possible.

I aimed the flare gun and fired at the soldier. He caught fire almost immediately, but still kept running at me, AR2 raised. He managed to fire a few rounds into the sky before he dropped to the ground. The AR2 slid towards me. I grabbed it and examined it, checking for low ammo. I then came slightly out of cover to grab more ammo of of the still-burning soldier. The ammo clips must have been pretty hot, but my gloves took care of that. I placed the ammo on my belt and dove back into cover, waiting for help to arrive.

--

Finally, I heard footsteps that didn't clank with metal. Definitely rebel. I couldn't see who was there, but I could see the zombies on the second floor standing up. Damn, I thought they were dead!

It seemed that ANOTHER sniper had situated himself to fire at the second floor, and had made quick work of the zombies.

I finally saw someone come into view. I couldn't believe he had found his way here! He could help me out of this mess! Gordon grabbed a grenade out of one of his suit's pockets. He hid behind a piece of wall and tossed a grenade into the window of the second floor sniper. The sniper went flying out of the window and hit the ground below, blood spreading everywhere.

I don't think he saw me yet, so when he came closer, I yelled, "Over here!" Gordon looked in my direction and waved. "Gordon, I can't move, these snipers got me pinned down! Gordon, lob a couple of grenades, that should clear 'em out!"

Gordon nodded and showed me that he had his RPG. He ran up the stairs to the third floor. Immediately, the snipers tried to fire at him. One was successful, and hit him in the chest, but Gordon jerked to the side and the second sniper's bullet missed. Gordon swapped his weapon to a shotgun and fired at a venomous headcrab that I hadn't noticed before.

He then discharged his RPG into one of the snipers windows, effectively killing it. He then took cover behind the file cabinet.

"One down, one to go, buddy!" I yelled to him. He quickly came out of cover and fired another rocket. It flew right past me, but it killed the sniper.

I finally stood up. "Alright, thanks, Gordon. Now let's clear outta here. You're quite the returning hero these days, Gordon!" With that, I ran down the steps to the second floor, Gordon close behind me. I ran down the ramp of debris to the barricade.

Two more of those hopper-mine-towing scanners flew out from behind a building. Gordon made quick work of both, and punted the hopper mines away with his gravity gun.

I walked to the security panel which controlled the barricade. "Lemme get this gate, my Civil Protection status still gives me limited clearance." As I pushed the buttons, I heard an odd meowing sound from somewhere in the distance. My body tensed up. "Did you hear a cat just now?" Gordon looked around and shook his head. "The damn thing gives me nightmares."

I unlocked the barricade and moved right on through to a building. Gordon was slightly ahead of me, and as he entered the building, he whipped out his crowbar and beat a poison headcrab to bits.

"Watch the headhumpers, Gordon!" Gordon ignored me as he advanced down a hall, shooting at a second headcrab before I got the chance to raise my gun.

--

We exited the building and came into a sort of courtyard. I could hear a dropship flying overhead, making a few explosive barrels on the ground roll slightly. Gordon recognized the beeping noise and grabbed his gravity gun. He used it to pick up one of the barrels and fire it at the top of a staircase that led into the next building. The barrel hit the wall and exploded, taking out whatever was making the beeping sound. I heard it firing a few bullets before it made a noise like it was shutting down. A door at the top of those stairs opened, and two soldiers came out of the building. Gordon grabbed another explosive barrel and flung it in their direction, blowing them both up.

"Just like old times, eh, Gordon?" Gordon seemed to have an intense anger on his face as he walked up the stairs into the next building. I guessed that now was the time to tell him about the Nexus.

"There's an old building up ahead, a bank, or a museum, or something like that. Whatever the hell it used to be, now it's a Nexus for Overwatch in City 17! It's the main source of pain for this part of town, thanks to a huge suppression device that's raining down hell from the roof of that place."

As Gordon climbed the stairs higher into the building, three rebels came up from behind me, joining the group.

Gordon entered the room where I had been earlier this week with the S29 commander, and the people like that. The Nexus was in plain sight. "There it is. The Overwatch Nexus. Looks like they're mobilizing big time."

Gordon pulled out a crossbow from one of his suit's compartments and sniped one of the soldiers by the entrance. I ignored it and kept talking. "You can sorta see the gate from here. I'll show you when we get to street level. We'll have to get in that building to open the gate. Even then, the suppression device will, uh, suppress anyone coming through unless _we_ shut it down. Then let's go!"

I opened the door out of the room with a security panel on the wall. We proceeded down a small walkway outdoors, then came back in. As Gordon, the front of the group, stepped back in, I heard a camera clicking. It had seen him!

"So much for stealth! We've been spotted! I yelled to the rebels. An alarm sounded as the suppression device struck its first blow. The outdoor walkway was pummeled to pieces. Luckily, everyone was inside the building.

One of the rebels shot the camera until it blew up. He then followed Gordon down a set of stairs with the other two. I brought up the rear.

Gordon charged down the stairs with his gravity gun, ready to take down turrets or uproot any hopper mines that happened to be nearby. On the ground floor, he tipped over a turret and tossed a hopper mine away.

It was time to begin the frantic charge through the plaza, trying to avoid getting vaporized by the suppression device. I took a deep breath and began to sprint across the plaza, hoping this time, I would be successful.

End Part 3

We now have an 18th page of the HL archives! Woohoo!


	23. The Objective Change

Part 4, Day 21

**Sorry about being a pain in the ass with the update. I'm beating myself up now so you don't have to. Now that's service!**

I leaned against the wall. I was exhausted. It seemed as if I had never stopped running. I had ran across the plaza with Gordon without any problems. I had ran into the Nexus without any problems. I ran with Gordon through the Nexus as he disabled the three generators. I ran all the way into this room where I could open a door and give Gordon access to the rooftops.

A dead soldier was slumped against the security panel, pressing random buttons. I shoved him off and unlocked the door.

"Lemme get this gate open...done! I'm gonna stay here and keep these gates open long enough to make a difference. Go on up and connect the skybridge. We need to let reinforcements come through from every possible direction! If any more citizens come through, I'll send 'em up to find you. See ya when I see ya, Gordon!"

The gate hummed open. With something of a salute, Gordon rushed through the gate and up a staircase, along with a few rebels that had just joined the group.

Then...silence. I heard sparks shooting out of disabled generators , but that was all. I sat against the wall and began to nod off.

--

Someone poked at my side. I had sunk to the floor and was lying on the ground. My eyes focused on...DOG.

"DOG! Where were you?" DOG simply offered me his hand to get me up. I might have been imagining things, but he looked angry. I stood up without his help.

Without another word, he ran back the way I came, through the lobby of the Nexus, and banged on the door through which we entered. I held my hands up to show that I couldn't open the door, as there was no security console handy.

He made a noise that resembled an exasperated groan as he backed up a bit. He dug his hands underneath the door and tugged with all of his strength. He managed to yank the door right out of the doorframe.

I walked right through. Part of the wall had also been taken out. "Thanks, DOG!" I said. He didn't respond. He rushed ahead, crashing through some double-doors. He proceeded down a set of stairs and through another wall to emerge in the plaza.

"DOG? What's wrong?" He motioned for me to follow again. He ran across the plaza, powering through buildings and destroying everything in his path. As he was jumping over a fence on part of the plaza, I yelled.

"DOG! STOP RIGHT NOW! What the HELL is wrong with you?"

DOG stopped and turned around, a bit impatient. He picked up a rock and hurled it in the direction of the Citadel.

"The Citadel?" DOG nodded.

"What about it?" I asked.

DOG charged into a nearby building and came back out carrying four filing cabinets. He arranged them around himself and pretended to be trapped.

"Office job? Boring?" DOG shook his head no to both. "Prisoner?" DOG nodded.

"Prisoner in the Citadel?" DOG again nodded.

"Who is a prisoner?"

DOG began to walk around on one leg. "Eli is a prisoner in the Citadel? I knew that, boy."

He nodded once more, but continued to "act". He went still for a second and began to play a recorded message. It was definitely Alyx talking.

"Eli _and _Alyx are prisoners in the Citadel?" DOG nodded for the last time and proceeded onwards, destroying things in his path.

Three Combine soldiers ran out of a building, firing at DOG with shotguns. He picked up a chunk of wall that he had knocked out and threw it at them in a fit of rage. All three were knocked to the ground. Two were definitely dead, while a third was alive, but the wall had him pinned to the ground. He screamed in agony. Without another word, I shot him in the head and silenced him.

DOG kept going. He actually jumped to grab a scanner out of the air and hurl it against a wall. I guessed that he thought he was going to rescue Alyx from the Citadel. He was strong, but...not that strong.

He suddenly ran ahead. I heard thumping from around a corner. Shortly after, I heard an explosion and gunfire. A Strider walked around the corner, trying to shake DOG off of its leg. DOG jumped off of the leg, jumped on top of a car, and threw himself at the leg again. The Strider was knocked to the ground, emitting a sound that resembled a scream. DOG jumped on top of its head and began to tear away at the hull. Blood went flying everywhere as he separated the protective metal from the delicate innards.

When DOG was finished with the Strider, he ran ahead. Eli must have been a genius to make DOG. I'd kill to have a robotic super-pet. But seeing that I had already killed, it didn't make much of a difference.

--

"DOG! Wait up!" He had hopped from level to level in a parking structure filled with old, rusting cars. I wasn't too confident in the sturdiness of the building. He shoved through cars and buses as if they were small girls. He made his way up to the roof of the structure and looked around, probably scouting a path to get as close to the Citadel as possible. I decided to stick with him and set up the staging area I had in mind later.

DOG seemed to find a path through the ruined city all the way to the Citadel. Smoke was rising from all sorts of buildings, and I could see a few fires. I didn't think the Combine was about to put them out anytime soon.

DOG ran back outside the parking structure. A dropship flew by, holding a folded-up Strider in its...arms. I didn't know whether it was taking a dead Strider away or delivering a "sleeping" Strider to some place where rebels were acting up.

DOG, being the (currently) extremely angry robot he was, he climbed up a lamp post, leaping off the top onto a rooftop. He ran along the rooftops, following the dropship. After a few seconds of chasing, he leaped off of the rooftop in one of the biggest jumps I had ever seen. He just barely caught the Strider's leg. Hanging on a little firmer now, DOG swung back and forth until he had enough momentum to flip onto the top of the dropship.

At this point, he began to kill the dropship as he would kill any other Combine synth. He tore the hull away and started to mutilate the delicate stuff underneath. The dropship flew around drunkenly for a few moments before dropping the Strider. It fell about fifty feet before crushing some kind of gas station. Thankfully, it didn't blow up.

The dropship swayed around a bit more before it too began to spiral toward the ground. Mesmerized by the whole fight, I didn't take time to realize it was flying straight at me like a kamikaze. DOG jumped off of the doomed dropship and tackled me to the ground. The dropship flew into the building behind me, tunneling through it before it came to a stop.

I let out a huge breath, patted DOG on the head, and kept going.

--

We came to S12 for some reinforcement. S12 was the nearest base to the Citadel. For security reasons, all CP stations needed to be one mile away from the Citadel. S12 was like the sign that said, "Turn back now!" in all of those cartoons. I looked behind me at the smoldering, ruined city. I looked forward at the gleaming, futuristic Citadel. There was no turning back now.

--

S12 was a reasonably large place. It was twice as large as S25. A 50-foot communications tower stood next to the station. A jungle of antennae stuck out of it. I saw two rebels working inside, speaking into walkie-talkies.

I knocked on the door. A few moments later, a man opened it. Two rebels immediately pointed their weapons at me. I held up my hands.

"Heeey...I don't think that's necessary!" I motioned for the guards to put down their guns.

"I'm sorry, it's just that this close to the Citadel, we need to take all the precautions possible. I'm surprised we haven't been blown up by Striders...but we did lose a crap load of rebels yesterday in a fight with soldiers. There's only five of us left now."

"Five? You mean the two in the tower out there, you, and your two guards? That's_ it_?"

The man nodded.

"Well then, you can just come with us and abandon this place! My friend here," I pointed at DOG. "Is trying to rescue Eli and Alyx Vance from the Citadel. Any of those names ring a bell?"

"No."

"Oh, well. Let's just say that they're _really _important. So can you come with us?"

"Aye. This place was as boring as hell anyway. Andrew! Get those two men from the tower!"

"Right away, sir." Andrew, one of the guards, hurried out of the base. A few moments later, he entered along with the two I had seen in the tower. One had an eye patch while the other walked with a limp. Not the best traits to have. I could see why they worked in the tower. Nonetheless, I could use all the help I could get.

--

Once they were all packed up, we left the station. DOG had not mellowed out one bit. He never ever went around anything, he just plowed right through it. As we neared the Citadel, he quickened his pace.

"DOG! Wait for us, boy!" I began to jog behind him. He ran even faster. I sprinted, and even then, he stayed a few feet in front of me. The man with the limp obviously couldn't keep up. He began to fall behind, and eventually out of sight.

The rebel with the eye patch said, "Hey, I'm going to help him! You go on ahead!" No one objected. We ran on ahead. Surprisingly, there were no Combine this close to the Citadel. It was a stone's throw away, if DOG was throwing the stone.

Off in the distance, I heard explosions. A gunship flew overhead, too high for DOG to reach. It fired a few rounds in our direction but missed. DOG, angered, roared at the gunship. Thankfully, he didn't bother chasing it down. The gunship flew out of sight, as if teasing us.

"Ignore it, DOG." I tapped his shoulder. He "barked" at me and ran ahead, as fast as ever. Groaning, I followed.

Two Combine soldiers made a lame attempt at killing us. I shot one as DOG picked up a car and hit the soldier with it like he was a golf ball and the car was the club. The soldier went flying like a rag doll over an improvised road block. DOG, even more enraged he threw a car into the air randomly and leaped over the roadblock. I clambered over behind him frantically.

--

Gordon was there, firing at other soldiers. He threw a grenade at a cluster of them. Two manged to run away, but the third was ripped apart by the explosion. Stuff like this didn't bother me anymore. Ripped bodies were a dime a dozen.

DOG threw a van at the two escaped soldiers. They were both killed immediately. Now that all enemies were dead, I took time to look around. A dead Strider lay in a heap next to some kind of hollowed out building. The Citadel was right in front of us, behind the Citadel wall. Even I could throw a rock at it and hit it now.

I turned to Gordon and explained to him why I was here and what DOG wanted. All of a sudden, DOG rushed to the Citadel wall and began to lift one of the sections.

"No, DOG! You can't get through that way!" But DOG, straining to move it, lifted the section out of the ground. A hole revealed itself underneath the section of the wall. Gordon could clumb down the hole and reach the Citadel! It must have been like the pipe in S25!

"Well, I'll be damned. I think he wants you to go through, Gordon! You'd better hurry." I could see DOG struggling to keep the Citadel wall section lifted. With a salute of sorts, Gordon leaped down the hole.

"And if you see Dr. Breen, tell him I said "Fu*k you!" My advice was drowned out by DOG dropping the wall back in place.

"Good job, buddy!" I patted him on the head. For some reason, he seemed a bit more calm now. I would have loved to follow Gordon and help him, but I needed to set up the staging area as soon as possible so we could punch the Combine below the belt.

Only now did I notice the rebels we had picked up at S12 were nowhere to be found. I knew the two handicapped rebels had stayed back. But what about the other three? I looked around. I saw another rebel who was exchanging guns with a dead soldier.

"You! I need your help! Go find five rebels back behind the roadblock! One should have an eye patch one should walk with a limp, and three others should be normal."

"Okay, whatever." The rebel ran to the roadblock and vaulted over it, out of sight.

"So now, we just wait for him to come back." I said to DOG.

--

A few minutes later, the rebel returned. He looked a little flustered. "They're dead. All five of them."

"Shit. How?" I asked.

The rebel gulped and replied, "They all had huge holes through them. And there was a big hole in the road next to them. I think something came out of the ground and-"

I silenced him. I knew exactly what killed them, and I had no intention of meeting up with it again. But I felt the ground rumble lightly. DOG tensed up. He roared softly.

"No one make any sudden moves. I want you all to move toward that apartment building over there."I pointed to the building I had in mind. "Now, slowly, start walking. Walk on your toes." We began to edge across the street.

The rumbling intensified. I heard more thumping. A Strider was far down the street, scanning the area for rebels. It finally found us, trapped in the street. We could either run now and possibly get drilled by the drillbot, as I had come to call it, or we could stick around and get killed by the Strider.

The Strider seemed to know what our dilemma was. It fired a few rounds in our direction to tease us. It paced around us, menacing.

"Run." I said urgently to DOG and the rebel. "NOW!"

We took off. Angered, the Strider opened fire on us, hitting me in the back three times. I screamed but kept running. Behind me, I heard the ground ripping open. Cement pieces hit me as I heard the familiar sound of the drill bot surfacing.

"Oh, crap." I turned around. No point in running now. I raised my gun and fired at the Strider. DOG ran off to find some projectile to throw. I had no time to tell him to just simply hop on top of the drillbot and rip its guts out.

Angered, the Strider approached me, its leg raised. It slammed it down. I rolled out of the way and fired. The drill bot, as if on cue, began to spin its drill. It stepped back a bit, and ran at me. It tucked its legs into itself and plowed right at me. DOG rushed into the scene and tackled the moving pod. He shoved it aside so it flew right past me and into the building we needed to get to. It collapsed on top of the drillbot, trapping it under a heap of rubble. I could forget about it for now and focus on the Strider.

DOG had climbed up the leg of the Strider and was trying to reach the head. The Strider managed to shake him off.

As DOG hit the ground, the Strider began to charge up its cannon. Air bended around its gun as it fired a blue ray of light. To my horror, DOG went sailing away as the cannon blast hit him. He hit another apartment complex and crashed through the wall. I had no time to check if he was okay. It was just the rebel and me now.

"Hey! Use this!" I looked around. I saw another rebel on top of the hollowed out building. He threw a rocket launcher at me and ran away. I didn't catch it. It hit the ground with a thud, undamaged. I scurried to pick it up.

I raised the weapon at the Strider and aimed. But at that moment, I felt something blunt whack me in the back of the head. I screamed and fell. The world was becoming blurry. I looked around and tried to find who had whacked me. The rebel stood by me, smug.

"You...you!" I sputtered.

"Yeah. Working undercover has its perks, you know. Makes it way easier to kill you." He showed me the butt of his gun, which had a few drops of blood. He pointed his AR2 at me, laughing. "I'd give the Strider the pleasure of shooting you 'till you look like swiss cheeses, but I think I want that pleasure more."

He opened fire. The bullets slowly began to penetrate my vest. I felt the first bullet hit my actual body.

"AUUUUUUUUUGH!" I coughed up blood. It flowed over my face.

The rebel laughed hysterically. He shot me once more. I found it hard to breathe. I gasped for air.

He raised his gun again, but before he could fire, a car came flying out of nowhere and smacked the Strider in the back of the head.

"Huh?" The rebel turned around, distracted. With my last ounce of strength, I grabbed his gun from his hands and shot him. At this point, I blacked out.

--

"He might just have to sit around here for a day." I opened my eyes. An African-American man stood over me, holding an empty medicine vial. "He's awake! Man, Jesus must looooooove you!"

"Wha-"

I realized I was lying in the street where the Strider and the drillbot and the evil rebel had been. The Strider was dead, ripped apart by DOG. The drillbot was also covered in blood, and it lay lifeless underneath the rubble. I had probably been out for an hour. The sky looked only slightly darker.

I stood up. I spit out blood from my mouth and felt my stomach. The vest was still ruined but my stomach seemed fine. There was no time to waste. It was time to go back to S31 get people for a staging area.

"Guys. We need to go now. No time for staying around."

The medic gaped at me. "I KNOW Jesus loves you!"

--

As I retraced my steps back to the Nexus, I heard a gigantic BOOM. I spun around. I didn't realize what it was at first, but then I saw an explosion at the very top of the Citadel

"Gordon." He was the only person who could possibly do that much damage. And if he was up there, he was dead. I stared at the Citadel. The very top part had been blown apart. Some kind of orange cloud was opening above he Citadel, some kind of portal.

"Aw, crap." The medic said.

"Let's go. We need to-" I realized it was pointless. The staging area? Why the hell should I do it now? Alyx, Eli, and Gordon were probably all dead. That explosion must have dispatched Breen.

"Dr. Kleiner!" I remembered him now. I needed to go help him relocate, if he hadn't done that already.

I told DOG and the medic about the doc. They both agreed to go.

We started out for the lab, hurrying down the street towards the setting sun.

The End.

_**Mmmm, aren't cheesy endings great? I thought so.**_

_**I didn't think this would ever come. I want to thank all reviewers of this story, especially my first reviewer, IFreeman. You don't know how nervous I was before I got your review. I had no idea how feedback would be. But here I am, with these final stats:**_

_**Number of people who have favorited this story: 12.**_

_**Alerts to this story: 7.**_

_**Again, thanks so much to everyone! Y'all rock!**_

_**'Til next time...**_

_**The Lover of Cheezburgers,**_

_**Cheezburgerlover.**_


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